


Don't Drag Me Down

by rowenablade



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: And kind of the worst, Angst and Feels, Angst with a Happy Ending, Aziraphale Loves Crowley (Good Omens), Aziraphale to the Rescue (Good Omens), Aziraphale: Heaven's Loose Cannon, BAMF Aziraphale (Good Omens), Blood and Violence, Can I put the Crowley is a Mess tag on here twice?, Crowley Loves Aziraphale (Good Omens), Crowley got around in Hell okay? Don't judge, Crowley is a Mess (Good Omens), Dark Magic, Emotional Manipulation, Established Relationship, Haunting, Heaven is also kind of awful, Heist, Hell Is Awful, Hurt/Comfort, I JUST WANT TO MAKE THAT CLEAR, Implied Crowley/Hastur, Implied Crowley/Other Demons, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Kidnapping, Light Dom/sub, Lucifer is Female, M/M, Makeup Sex, Physical peril but no torture to our mains, Possessive Aziraphale (Good Omens), Post-Canon, Psychological Torture, Romance, Sex, Shower Sex, Slut Shaming, So much tenderness it makes my face hurt, This has a happy ending I promise, no beta we fall like angels
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-26
Updated: 2020-05-13
Packaged: 2021-02-28 17:53:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 19
Words: 46,921
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23331193
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rowenablade/pseuds/rowenablade
Summary: Armageddon didn't happen, Heaven and Hell have agreed to leave them alone, and Aziraphale and Crowley are free to build a life together.But the forces of Hell aren't happy with losing, and even if they can't directly harm their wayward demon, they can try to drive a wedge between him and the angel that he loves.After all, Crowley had been encouraging them for centuries to get creative.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 91
Kudos: 164





	1. "Is there someplace quiet where we can meet?"

**Author's Note:**

> So in the space of a week, I watched Good Omens for the first time, became completely obsessed with this ship, binged an unhealthy amount of the lovely fics posted here, and sat down to write this. 
> 
> Specifically, I got to thinking about Crowley's past as a successful agent of Hell, and started wondering how much Aziraphale really understands about the consequences of Crowley's centuries of bad deeds. And would that form a weak spot in their bond that Hell might try to exploit?
> 
> This first chapter, and the fic throughout, will contain brief but intense descriptions of violence, so those who are squeamish please take note. This will get dark, although no physical harm will come to our OTP.
> 
> The main title and chapter titles are taken from the Social Distortion album "White Light, White Heat, White Trash", because I put it on quite at random while I was plotting this and couldn't believe how well the lyrics lined up.

The two of them were at the cinema, the first time it happened.

It had been Crowley’s idea for them to go. The demon hadn’t taken to unemployment as easily as he’d expected to. Like many of the deadly sins, Sloth was one of those things that Crowley could appreciate as a concept, but found he had a hard time living to its fullest. The late afternoons were the worst. The sun would sink to the horizon and become a slitted yellow eye, the shadows would lengthen to accusing black fingers and Crowley would find himself pacing his flat, grinding his teeth and thinking about eternity. Specifically, how he had spent the first six-thousand years of it, and what he could possibly do to occupy his mind for the rest.

As he almost always did, he turned to Aziraphale for distraction, and the angel was happy to oblige, as he almost always was.

So Aziraphale closed the bookshop early, and they went to the movies.

Crowley offered to let the angel choose the picture and the venue, so he was not surprised when Aziraphale’s directions took them past the megaplex and to a small revival house instead. The place was worn-down and a bit tawdry, the polished brass and battered velvet of the decor hinting at a theatrical glamour that had largely gone from the world. A sign near the box office thanked them for supporting a local business, and the woman who sold them their tickets smiled warmly at them as she pushed the two thin strips of paper through the little window in front of her.

“Please tell me you haven’t picked anything too saccharine,” Crowley muttered as they found their seats in the back row. “This place is making my teeth hurt as it is.”

Aziraphale shushed him gently, even though the lights were still up and nothing was yet on the screen. “You’ll enjoy it, I promise,” he whispered. “And besides, the theatre may be local, but most of the ticket sales go to the soulless Hollywood studios that make the films. So it evens out.”

Crowley smirked. “Soulless? You know better than that.” But then the lights went down, and he fell silent.

Aziraphale snuck glances over at his companion as the first act spooled out. The demon was in his usual habit of taking up more space than he strictly needed to, with one arm flung across Aziraphale’s shoulders and his legs stretched out so his feet were propped up on the seat in front of him. He still wore his sunglasses, so instead of his golden eyes all Aziraphale saw was the flickering figures on the screen reflected backwards. It made it hard to read his expression, but Crowley didn’t fidget or sigh or whisper snide insults at the screen, and the angel smiled in the dark with the knowledge that he’d chosen well.

Crowley _was_ enjoying the film. It was old, black-and-white old, and maybe even by some stretch of the imagination a love story, but it was also full of secrets and intrigue and more than a little peril. Understanding why Aziraphale had chosen it, he reached out in the dark and squeezed the angel’s hand. 

“Which one would be me, then? Him?” Crowley whispered, indicating the rakish leading man.

“Now now, no talking in the theatre,” Aziraphale chided gently. “You may be a demon, but _that’s_ beneath you and you know it.”

Then the leading man took the fair-haired heroine in his arms, their silver eyes shining with longing, and something…happened.

To Crowley, at first it only registered as a splash of color, shockingly vivid amongst the film’s palette of soft grays. A sense of red and pink and brown, so fast he wasn’t even sure he saw it. 

He blinked, the afterimage wavering behind his eyelids, almost taking shape, but fading away before it could fully settle.

He glanced over at Aziraphale, but the angel seemed to have noticed nothing. He was contentedly leaning his head against Crowley’s shoulder, looking the very image of peace. It was soothing just to look at him like that, and after a moment Crowley relaxed and passed another ten minutes in relative calm.

Then it happened again.

The image was still too fast to really see, but Crowley was left with a lingering impression. A mouth…blood…teeth at strange angles. He shifted uncomfortably, craned his neck to look up at the projected light behind him as if he’d find some explanation there. 

“All right?” Aziraphale followed his gaze upward, furrowing his brow when he couldn’t figure what Crowley was looking for. 

“Did you see that?”

“See what?” This time Aziriphale was still looking up at the ceiling rather than the screen when the next image flashed, and it lasted a fraction of a second longer. An eye, a ruined human eye, the lid torn away, dripping some sickly fluid down a sallow cheek-

And then gone.

“Crowley?” Even in its theatre-appropriate hush, the concern in Aziraphale’s voice was clear and reassuring. 

“Watch the picture,” Crowley murmured, settling back in his seat. “I’ll tell you when I see it again.”

It was well into the third act when it came again, and Crowley had almost forgotten to be on the lookout for it. The leading man was facing off against the villain, the heroine imploring him to be careful, pistols were being drawn-

And then another flash of color, and another horror echoing in Crowley’s mind, this one of a human form bound to a stone slab, the arms stretched cruelly behind it until the bones were almost snapping, the torso pierced with long, serrated blades.

“There,” Crowley hissed, squeezing Aziraphale’s knee. “Did you see it? Don’t tell me you didn’t see it!”

“I saw _something_ ,” Aziraphale replied hesitantly. “But it was so faint… Are you sure it isn’t just a scratch on the film, dear?”

Crowley began to feel a sickly heat prickling over his scalp.

The angel couldn’t see it. Whatever was happening, it had been meant for Crowley’s eyes only.

It wasn’t an entirely private message, though. Crowley scanned the room and noticed that whatever was going on was having an effect on their few fellow patrons, if a diminished one than what Crowley was experiencing. The couple a few rows down from them, originally draped in a companionable embrace similar to Crowley and Aziraphale’s own, were now doing something closer to huddling, the man’s shoulders hunched and protective as he held the woman close against his chest. The three girls near the front row, who had been chattering happily and trading snacks when they came in, had all withdrawn into their own spaces, tense and silent as rabbits beneath the shadow of a hawk.

“Sweetheart?” Aziraphale’s voice seemed a very long way off. “Are you alright?”

Crowley leaned forward, peering over the tops of his sunglasses, drawing in a deep breath and then letting it out in a serpent’s hiss. A sound in nature meant to communicate, _I am here, and I am dangerous._

 _Come on then,_ he challenged on a plane where mortal ears couldn’t hear him. _Out with it. What are you trying to tell me?_

The silver giants on the screen continued their primitive dance. The villain was defeated, the hero and the heroine kissed, the music swelled as all was set right with the world.

The credits began to roll, the footlights came on. The scant crowd began to file out in an orderly, if unusually subdued, fashion. 

“Come _on_.” Crowley banged a fist on his knee. “You’ve got something to say, then _say_ it.”

“Crowley.” Aziraphale was tugging gently at his arm, trying to get the demon to face him. “I think we’d better-“

“There!” Crowley pointed. “See? That’s my _name_ , angel!”

It was there, tucked into a list of sound technicians. _Anthony J. Crowley._ But it was already sliding up off the screen, and passed beyond sight just as Aziraphale turned his head to look.

“Your name? I’m afraid I don’t-“

Crowley snarled in frustration and flung himself to his feet. “Let’s go,” he snapped, feeling a pang of guilt at the vague hurt on Aziraphale’s face. “Let’s just…get out of here…”

His voice trailed off. Some of the letters on the screen were pulsing, brightening just a bit to stand out from the others and then fading back to normal. So faint, so quick, impossible to notice if you weren’t looking for something odd…

They went in a pattern, paused, and then repeated. Each one just distinct enough for Crowley to string them together.

_W…E…S…E…E…Y…O…U…_

Crowley suddenly felt very cold.

“Can we go?” He managed to wrench his gaze away from the screen and finally turn to face Aziraphale, who was goggling at him with fear and confusion and care so genuine it hurt to see. “Please?”

“Of course.” The angel took his hand delicately, as if worried Crowley might explode if he made a wrong move. Treading carefully, as if they walked on dangerous ground, the two ineffable beings crept out of the movie house and into a fragrant summer night.


	2. "It's a game now, you just gotta know the rules."

Outside, with the warm evening breeze on his face and the steady beat of London’s nightlife pulsing around him, Crowley began to feel a bit better. Better still in the Bentley, his chariot, with the windows rolled down and the radio turned up loud. He drove through the crowded streets with his usual unholy abandon, and gradually the fear he’d felt inside the theatre began to be replaced by anger.

“Taunt me, will you?” he growled in tune with the Bentley’s engine. “Well if that’s what you want, that’s how we’re gonna play it…”

As a general rule, Aziraphale did not try to engage Crowley in conversation while he drove. He preferred to focus his energy on prayer, for their own safety and for mercy on anyone foolish enough to cut into the demon’s lane. This time, he sensed best practices were not going to be sufficient. Crowley’s knuckles were white on the steering wheel, and beneath his facade of indignation it was clear his lover was badly shaken. And Aziraphale _had_ been able to sense something amiss during the picture, even if he’d been unable to see exactly what Crowley was seeing.

“Crowley.” He spoke carefully, trying to project some of his innate self-assurance into the charged atmosphere within the vehicle. “Can you please just tell me what you saw?”

Crowley twitched at the sound of the angel’s voice, as if he’d forgotten he had a passenger. “Hell’s trying to get in contact,” he said tersely. “And getting a bit _cute_ with it, I might add. Used to be they’d just hijack whatever song I was listening to and give their orders that way, but apparently _someone_ down there fancies themselves an _artissst_.” He practically spat venom at the last word, his tongue going forked between his teeth. 

Aziraphale’s serene blue eyes widened in alarm. “Hell? But they _wouldn’t_ , they said they’d leave us alone. They’re supposed to be _afraid_ of us now, them and Heaven both.”

Crowley felt a fresh surge of fury at the fear in Aziraphale’s voice, and tried to compensate by steadying his own. “Yes, well, perhaps they’re onto us. Or perhaps they just want to wind me up, want to remind me where I come from…not sure what they’re thinking, they didn’t show me anything I haven’t seen before…”

_Crowley._

His eyes snapped to the rearview mirror, but the backseat was empty, of course it was. He hadn’t even really _heard_ his name spoken, just sensed it.

The song on the radio changed to something sleek and modern, with a low, throbbing bassline. Crowley turned the volume up, hoping the music would drown out this itching sensation in his head. The bass echoing in the car became a physical force, vibrating through his body, taking shape…

Forming _words_ …

_….wesee…wehear…weknow…_

“Crowley?” Aziraphale’s voice this time, edged with panic, probably just wanted him to turn the music down, he could do that in a minute, he had to _concentrate_.

_…hateyew…curseyew…hurtyew…._

“Think you’re funny?” Crowley hissed in the direction of the radio, his hands in a strangling grip on the wheel. “Think you’re gonna scare me with your little tricks? Think I give a bloody toss what you think, you bunch of up-jumped _amateurs_?”

“Crowley…”

“I’m a fallen _fucking_ angel!” Crowley roared over the churning sound from the speakers. “I’m not afraid of _you_ , I’m not going to be afraid of some bloody _stupid_ pictures, and I’m definitely not going to be afraid of the Top of the _fucking_ Pops, so why don’t you just-“

“Crowley!”

Aziraphale reached over and snapped the radio off, and the sudden silence left Crowley’s ears ringing.

The itching stopped as well, and Crowley realized they were no longer moving. The Bentley was parked in front of the bookshop, the street returning to the hush of evening now that the strange man screaming at his radio had given it a rest. Curious faces hovered at some windows, and a group of lads on the street corner stared cautiously at the Bentley before shrugging and moving on.

“If you’re _quite_ done…” Aziraphale’s tone was stern, but he took Crowley’s hand as gently as he ever did.

Crowley let out a long, shuddering breath and dropped his head against the steering wheel. “Bless it, angel, I’m sorry,” he sighed. 

“It’s alright.” Aziraphale stroked his thumb over Crowley’s knuckles, feeling the furious heat start to drain away from the demon’s skin. “We made Hell rather angry with that stunt we pulled, didn’t we? I suppose a life free of a little…infernal harassment was too much to hope for.”

“They shouldn’t _dare_.”

“But they can. They have.” Aziraphale reached out to touch Crowley’s face, caught his eyes through the dark glasses and smiled. “Doesn’t mean we have to let it get to us. Ignore it, and I suspect they’ll get bored and move on.”

“If they’re onto us-“

“Then we’ll go somewhere they can’t follow. Just you and me. Our side, remember?”

Crowley took another deep breath and nodded. “Our side.”

The angel leaned over and kissed him, and at last Crowley was able to push the unease fully from his mind.

“I think…given the circumstances…it would be best if you stayed the night.”

Crowley smiled wickedly, and kissed Aziraphale a good deal less chastely than the first time. “Oh, I’d planned on that, love,” he whispered. “Let’s get upstairs before I scandalize your neighbors even more.”


	3. "This ain't the way it's supposed to be, there's a dark cloud following me."

Enough time passed that Crowley began to believe that Aziraphale’s “Just ignore it and they’ll go away,” tactic had been the right call.

The incidents from the night at the cinema did not repeat, no clearer messages from their former supervisors were forthcoming, and the angel and the demon were left alone to slowly, carefully build a life together.

Crowley started to spend more and more time at the bookshop, and soon stopped sleeping at his own flat entirely.

The bookshop wasn’t entirely to his tastes, to be certain, but he got so _bored_ at his flat now. With no fiendish plans to draw up, no bribes to call in, no corruptible souls to entertain and ensnare, the place had entirely lost its function. 

He asked Aziraphale, one morning in the shop, while the angel tidied up and Crowley idly took up space in a corner, what he did with his spare time.

“You mean when I’m not with you?” the angel demurred. “Well, I’ve the shop to run, of course.”

Crowley arched an eyebrow and peered meaningfully about the room, taking in the shop’s total lack of customers. “And that keeps you busy, does it?”

“Point taken,” Aziraphale conceded. “I don’t know, I suppose I just…go out and about. Talk to people. Help them, if I can.”

“Help them? Like, performing miracles?”

“Goodness, no. Just…being there. Sometimes people just need someone to talk to. If they’re afraid of something, or feeling bad about themselves, or just not sure what to do. Sometimes they talk to me, and if I can, I’ll try and make them feel better.”

“But-“ Crowley waved his hands about ineffectively. “Why? Do you still think you’re working for Heaven?”

“Not as such, no,” Aziraphale answered, a hint of confusion in his voice. Had he really never considered this before? “I suppose you could call it…freelancing? I guess it’s the same things I would do if I were still working for Heaven, but it’s not _for_ them, I would say.”

“So it’s just…what you like to do?”

“Well, yes.” Aziraphale shrugged and turned back to the stack of books he was shelving. “I still _want_ to do good things. I’m still an angel, after all.”

Crowley fell silent, and wondered what such a statement implied about him.

He was still a demon. Did he still _want_ to do bad things? He’d always considered his work for Hell to be a duty rather than a calling. He did enough to keep the Powers Below satisfied with him, so he could focus on the earthly pleasures that he’d come to appreciate so well. If he did his job well, it left him with more freedom, and so the motivation had been clear to be good at doing bad.

Now, the thought of tempting people, creating chaos, luring more souls to Hell- it seemed petty, and a betrayal of what he and his companion had accomplished. And he didn’t think Aziraphale would want to share his life so closely with someone who did such things, even if Crowley was doing it as a freelancer.

So no. He didn’t want to do bad things anymore. He wanted to be with Aziraphale, to dine in restaurants and make love and experience the wonders of the ineffable human experiment together. And if not doing bad was going against his nature, well, his nature would bloody well have to change, wouldn’t it?

And yet…

It wasn’t the work he missed, he eventually understood.

What he missed was being _good_ at something.

——

Aziraphale put on some Handel while he prepared a light supper, and tried to tell himself that everything was fine.

And it was. The angel was moving about the kitchen in a pleasant daze, performing tasks that gave him an almost meditative sense of comfort. The music in the air was clear and sweet. Crowley was sprawled on the couch in the living room, reading a book as if he’d be content to do this forever. They were free and in love and there was no reason, no reason at all, to think that that would ever change.

Perhaps that was the problem.

As a Very Nearly Eternal Being, Aziraphale had a different relationship with the concept of change than what mortals had. Empires could rise and fall, languages could flourish and die away in what seemed the blink of an eye, even his beloved books could be conceived, penned, praised, condemned and forgotten and to Aziraphale it would not seem like the world had changed. It was more like the weather, cool one day, humid the next, but still the same weather on the same world, moving in the same sort of patterns that it always had.

To Aziraphale, the only true, lasting change in the Universe came at the hands of the Almighty. The creation of something, or the removal of it. It happened so rarely, these days, and when it did it was truly awe-inspiring. But it was also rather frightening, and for his part, Aziraphale was perfectly content with it being a once-in-every-few-millennia-or-so thing.

He and Crowley were the same sort of creature, on the deepest level. Shaped by their own choices, but created by the same hands, for the same purpose, once. Yet he and Crowley were not the same person, and Aziraphale knew that Crowley saw the world differently than he did. And every once in a while, Aziraphale found himself worrying that his dear sweet demon, who loved speed and noise and wars of words, would one day…grow bored with him.

Aziraphale was an angel, and by his nature wanted those around him to be happy. Especially Crowley. But could Crowley, as a demon, be, well, _happy_ being happy? 

The angel scolded himself for even thinking such a thing. Crowley had proven himself capable of extraordinary things, after all, things no demon had ever dreamed of attempting. It was a disservice to his beloved’s character, for Aziraphale to doubt him in this way.

But still, the doubt crept in. And Aziraphale found himself looking over his shoulder into the living room more than once as he cooked, as if making sure that Crowley hadn’t suddenly decided he’d had quite enough of this, set his book down on the table, gone downstairs to his car and left this quiet life forever.

Crowley was right on the couch where Aziraphale had left him, heavy book now facedown across his narrow chest, his breathing slow and easy…

And then he was sitting up, looking sharply about the room, his eyes - exposed for once - narrowing to cold slits.

“Did you hear that?”

Aziraphale was digging about in the spice rack for a jar of herbs de provence he had _just seen_ , he _knew_ it, and couldn’t hear much at all over the clattering of little jars. “I’m afraid not, dear. Something from outside?”

“No, no.” Crowley was on his feet now, hovering in the kitchen doorway. “Stop that racket. Just…listen. The music.”

Aziraphale stilled his hands and listened. The familiar sonata sounded the same as it always had, to him, but it was clear from the way Crowley was behaving that all was not well.

“Is it…another message?” 

“Shut up!” Crowley snapped. “Just _listen_ , would you, it’s so _clear_. It’s…inside the music, or I don’t know, behind it, but it’s there, you have to hear it!”

“I don’t,” Aziraphale said helplessly, trying not to let Crowley’s imperative sting too badly. “Can you tell me what it is? Maybe I could hear it better, if I knew what to listen for.”

“It’s…names,” Crowley ventured, his voice brittle. “Just…people’s names. It just keeps going on.”

Aziraphale strained to listen, desperate to hear something so that he could reassure Crowley that he wasn’t losing his wits. He heard no names. If he really concentrated, he thought he could hear a slight tone that wasn’t supposed to be there, something that an unsuspecting ear might mistake for a violin but when examined closely sounded more like someone weeping, softly. But it was so hard to be certain.

“Crowley, darling, I’m sorry, but I can’t hear it,” Aziraphale sighed as the piece came to an end. “Are you sure that you-“

“You don’t believe me?” Crowley’s eyes were wide and hurt in his pale face, and Aziraphale felt a horrible stab of guilt and immediately went over to take his lover’s hands. 

“Of course I believe you. Why would you make this up?” he said reasonably, trying to force a smile. “I just…I’m really not sure what to do, is all.”

“Could you…” Crowley’s hands were cold, and there was a faint shiver in his voice. “Could you turn it off? Please?”

“Of course.” Aziraphale turned the music off, then went back to Crowley and wrapped his arms around him. They stayed like that as the silence permeated the flat, and Crowley seemed to relax, bit by bit, until his breathing returned to normal and he began to fidget.

“I’m alright,” he finally said, disentangling himself and kissing Aziraphale lightly on the temple. “I just hate…whatever this is.”

“I know.” Aziraphale went to set the table, keeping a wary eye on Crowley as he did. “I can do some research later, if you like.”

“Don’t bother.” Crowley waved a dismissive hand at the phonograph, his movements once again carrying their usual casual, vaguely threatening confidence. “It’s not worth your time. Not worth either of ours.”

And he didn’t say another word about it for the rest of the evening.


	4. "Who wants to fight temptation, that's no fun."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: There's some brief, gruesome imagery at the beginning of this chapter. But, also romance later on! *shrugs helplessly*

The messages didn’t come all the time, but in a way that made it worse.

Days or weeks would go by, just long enough for Crowley to believe that maybe it was over. Then he’d notice the lyrics of the music he was listening to had been replaced by stranger’s names, or vivid descriptions of how Anthony Crowley was a worthless, loathsome serpent who deserved to be flayed alive for what he’d done. One afternoon in a pub he noticed that the football players on the telly above the bar were playing with a severed human head. He only caught it for a few seconds, and when he blinked and looked again the ball had turned back to normal.

Worse still was the knowledge that he was being toyed with. If Hell had something to say, they were perfectly capable of finding him and saying it, so this harassment campaign was likely not a means to an end, but an end in itself. They wanted him like this; nervous, irritable, never able to put Hell completely from his mind.

Crowley had to give them credit, the bastards had learned the concept of subtlety somewhere along the way. Sometimes the signals were so faint he couldn’t be sure they weren’t just his imagination. Was the bass from that passing car growling his name? Was there a code to be found in the scrolling text of a news station, or were those letters just pulsing because he’d been staring at them so closely?

Aziraphale tried his best to be sympathetic. When Crowley would trail off in mid-sentence and focus his attention on something the angel could not see or hear, Aziraphale would take his hand and wait patiently for the distraction to pass. He endured Crowley’s increasing paranoia, his growing reluctance to leave the bookshop, his occasional lashing-out when he’d been pushed to a breaking point. 

He endured it. He did not enjoy it. Crowley knew that, and it made him feel even worse. A fracture had appeared in their relationship, and soon Crowley was terrified that any move he made would cause it to grow.

It had been his first act upon this planet, hadn’t it? To find something perfect and help to destroy it? 

He lay next to Aziraphale in bed, clinging to his lover’s body the way only a part-time serpent could, and promised himself that he would not lose his heaven again. For that’s what this love between them was, he knew, even more blissful than the days when Crowley had lived in the Creator’s grace. He’d always been a little wrong-footed in Heaven; inquisitive, distracted, and ultimately corruptible. With his angel he only felt free and whole and at peace, and losing him, Crowley thought, would be as painful as Falling all over again.

Aziraphale sleepily ran his fingers through Crowley’s hair, and Crowley shivered at the touch and pressed himself closer. He promised himself, promised the both of them, that no one, especially not Crowley himself, would be allowed to harm the bond they’d forged.

In the silence, in the night, the old rafters of the building creaked and settled. An early autumn wind gently nudged at the walls around them. 

Crowley heard these tiny sounds, and cold dread gripped his heart as they began to take shape in the space between his ears and his mind.

_We know you, Crowley. You belong with us._

Crowley’s eyes opened, yellow and furious in the dark.

No, this wouldn’t do at all.

——

Aziraphale was worried when Crowley told him he was going out for a bit. Hell’s messages always upset Crowley more when they came for him out in public, when he couldn’t control the source of them and when he could sense the humans sensing something wrong. He left in the morning, and Aziraphale kept busy about the shop and braced himself for the demon to return in a foul mood.

He did not return angry. He returned with flowers.

“For you,” he said, pressing the bundle of camellias into Aziraphale’s hands. 

They were a mix of deep red and soft white, each one perfect, not a trace of a wilt or discoloration.

“They’re lovely,” Aziraphale said, looking around for something to put them in. He was rather caught off guard by how touched he was. “Thank you, darling.”

“You like them? Good.” Crowley was suddenly holding a glass vase, gently reclaiming the flowers to set them in the water and place them near a sunny spot by the cash register. “Keep them as long as you like. They’ll stay like this until you’re tired of them. Isn’t that right?” He addressed this last bit to the flowers themselves, his tone becoming somewhat menacing.

“Leave them be,” Aziraphale scolded, although with no real force behind his words. “Come here.”

Crowley obeyed, letting Aziraphale pull him into an embrace and resting his head on the angel’s shoulder.

"Thank you," Aziraphale repeated. "And I'm so glad you seem to be feeling better."

“I’ve been a bit of a miserable old bastard lately, haven’t I?”

Aziraphale laughed and planted a lingering kiss on Crowley’s neck, just below his snake tattoo. 

“Don’t worry about it. You’re still the sweetest demon I’ve ever met.”

Crowley squeezed him tighter and Aziraphale pulled back a bit so he could look into Crowley’s eyes. The sunglasses were in the way, but Crowley didn’t protest when Aziraphale reached up to remove them. This close, Aziraphale could see the cast of exhaustion to his demon’s features, some new lines and hollows that had begun to creep into his face.

“Oh, my love. Has it been awful?”

For a moment it looked as if Crowley was going to say something flippant, dismiss the ordeal with his usual sarcasm and change the subject, but then some resolve seemed to break within him, and he just nodded.

Aziraphale kissed him, trying to pour his love and faith into it, into Crowley, trying to remind him that they belonged to each other and no force on Earth or Elsewhere was going to change that.

Crowley responded hungrily, sucking the angel’s lower lip between his teeth, letting his long, clever fingers tangle in his hair.

“You love me?” he breathed.

“Of course.”

“Tell me.”

The possessive edge in those words made Aziraphale’s stomach do a little flip. “I love you,” he answered. “Always will. You don’t…” he lost concentration for a moment as Crowley began to kiss along his jawline. “You don’t need to buy me flowers every time you get a bit cross.”

“I know I don’t. I just want to.” Heat was coming off the demon in waves. Aziraphale could feel it through their clothes, feverish and urgent to match the tone in Crowley’s voice. “Want to give you everything you deserve.” He rolled his hips and Aziraphale found himself going weak in the knees. “Want to make you feel good…to be so good for you…”

With great difficulty Aziraphale opened his eyes. He could still quite clearly see the street outside over Crowley’s shoulder. “I think we’d better-“

There was the soft sound of snapping fingers.

“-go upstairs,” he finished as they materialized in the bedroom. “Bit of a waste of a miracle, don’t you think, love?”

“No,” Crowley answered in what was very nearly a growl. “Can’t wait. Need you.”

During his time as a servant of Heaven, physical love had been outside of Aziraphale’s, well, scope of expertise, he supposed one could call it. And before Crowley, his understanding of carnality had been purely academic. He’d come to understand it a bit more firsthand, as it were, when he started to realize the exact nature of his feelings for his one-time adversary. Well, he’d never claimed to be perfect. But now he and Crowley were devoted to one another, and physical expressions of love in their situation were perfectly natural and, Aziraphale felt deep in his soul, perfectly legitimate. So he believed he’d been quite successful at keeping the sin of Lust at arm’s length, or nearly so, for his existence.

Now he wasn’t feeling so sure. He was learning an awful lot of things about Lust right now. That it…well, that it just _ruined_ Crowley’s ability to speak in complete sentences, for one thing. Aziraphale was surprised that that wasn’t bothering him. He was gripping Crowley’s waist with an unrestrained strength he had not displayed before. He’d stopped his military training long ago, of course, but he still possessed a supernatural strength that was at this moment sure to leave bruises on his lover’s flesh. Crowley didn’t seem to mind in the slightest. That was a surprise as well.

“Is this…are we…” Crowley had succeeded in getting Aziraphale’s shirt open, and was running those elegant fingers over his bare skin in a way that was simply _intoxicating_. “Is this allowed?”

Crowley pulled away, golden eyes swimming with want. “How do you mean?”

“This feels…different than before.” Aziraphale looked at the floor as he felt his cheeks turn crimson. “Sinful.”

“Hmm.” Crowley’s fingers were under Aziraphale’s chin, tilting his face up to meet his eyes. That dizzying heat was still between them, stronger now that they were both half out of their clothes, and stark need was still written on the demon’s face, in the lines of his body. But Aziraphale saw the love still there as well, pure and gold and beautiful. 

“Maybe it is,” the serpent of Eden whispered, pulling the angel in for another deep, lingering kiss. “Do you want to sssstop?”

That forked tongue flicked against his ear, just once, and Aziraphale decided that the difference between lust and love could be well left to the philosophers for now.

“ _Fuck_ , no,” he gasped, and pulled Crowley down into their bed.

——

After their first time, Crowley, spent and elated and a bit self-conscious, all at once, had told Aziraphale that no one made love in Hell.

And that had been true. 

There would have been no point. Any exchange of pleasure in Hell was only done so it could be turned against another. A caress from someone meant they knew where it would hurt the most when they struck you. You only kissed someone as a way to get close enough to bite.

The point being, there was no making love in Hell. There was _plenty_ of fucking.

Crowley had never known exactly how to explain this to Aziraphale, so he’d settled on keeping his mouth shut. And, if he’d been honest, holding back quite a bit when they were in bed together.

Now, as he held his angel down and absolutely _ravished_ him, Crowley realized what a fool he’d been to deny them both of the full extent of his knowledge.

He was a demon. He had the blackened wings and bruised soul to prove it. And Aziraphale loved him anyway. An act of love so pure deserved a reward that only an expert in temptation could give.

Besides, he needed Aziraphale to be in a damned good mood when he asked him for the favor that he needed.

When they finally collapsed, damp with sweat and thoroughly exhausted, neither of them had the energy to speak. After some time Crowley was able to roll onto his side and pull Aziraphale against him, the angel’s back to his chest, and softly kiss his ear.

“That was…” Aziraphale decided he wasn’t interested in trying to find the right word. “What on earth brought that on?”

“I love you,” Crowley answered honestly. “Truly. Always will. I want to give you everything I have. Even if it’s not worth much.”

“Hush,” Aziraphale said, squeezing his hand. “I love you too.”

“Aziraphale, there’s…something I need to ask you for. Something I hope you can do for me.”

“The spirit is willing, sweetheart, but does the term ‘refractory period’ mean anything to you?”

“Not that,” Crowley replied with a weak laugh. Then his voice grew solemn. “Angel, it’s about…these problems I’ve been having.”

“I thought it might be.” Aziraphale squirmed around until he was facing Crowley. “What is it you need?”

“You can say no.”

“I’m well aware of that.”

“And I won’t be angry. I won’t love you any less.”

“Dear, if you don’t spit it out, I _will_ be angry,” Aziraphale said dryly, but his eyes were still gentle as he stroked Crowley’s cheek.

Crowley took a deep breath, kissed the angel’s forehead, and resolved to behave with grace and patience, no matter what his answer was.

“I need you to go to Hell.”


	5. "I feel rich, I feel power and security, and when I'm weak, you are strong."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have some more intense chapters to write coming up, but this one was just pure fun.

Aziraphale got dressed and went to make some tea. Ethereal being or not, he’d lived in England long enough that this was what he did when a difficult conversation needed to be had.

“I take it you’ve been scheming,” he guessed, when he finally had a cup in front of him. 

Crowley answered with a lazy shrug. “Old habits.” He’d pulled his jeans back on, but left the rest of himself bare. Slouching in the kitchen doorway like that, he looked thoroughly delectable and very aware of it. Aziraphale worried that he might have created a monster by revealing the effect that Crowley’s traditional wiles had on him.

He pushed away the thought of simply dragging the demon back into the bedroom. “Go on, then.” He peered over the rim of his teacup and tried to look infallible. “Tell me what you have in mind.”

Crowley straightened up a bit. “Right. So Hell’s been on me for months now, sending me these messages. And you have to understand, this is _way_ more sophisticated than their usual methods. I mean, I pitched the idea of subliminal messaging to them back in 1965 and got laughed out of the bloody _room_. Told me it would leave too much room for interpretation, can you believe that? Meanwhile they were only too happy to take credit for it when Led Zeppelin started taking all that heat-“

“What on earth is a Led-“

“Nevermind.” Crowley was pacing now, no easy task in Aziraphale’s tiny kitchen. “My point is, this is new territory for them. New technology. And all they’ve really done with it is threaten me. I mean, this is an _awfully_ complicated way just to call me a wanker, isn’t it?”

“You know very well you’re making light of it,” Aziraphale retorted. “You’ve been out of sorts since it started. I hardly recognize you some days. So whatever their reason is for doing it, wouldn’t you say it’s working? They want you to be miserable, and you have been.”

“Angel,” Crowley sighed, rubbing his temples. “What you define as miserable and what they define as miserable are so far from each other that I would need a chart the size of London to show it to scale.”

Aziraphale nodded grudgingly and waited. He sensed Crowley was approaching a point at last.

“No,” Crowley continued. “This is the opening act, not the headliner. This is part of a plan. Phase One, to be followed by Phase Two. Whatever they’re planning to do, they want me like this. And I think…I think they want us to be on the outs. You notice how they haven’t targeted you at all? I think that’s deliberate. Easier for it to cause friction between us, if only one of us is getting the full effect.”

“That’s…horrible.” Aziraphale turned the idea over in his mind. “But it does make sense.” He was offended, he realized, by the idea that outside forces might be meddling, not just with Crowley but with the two of them as a unit. It was so _invasive_. “So your plan involves, what then? Me serving them with a heavenly restraining order?”

“Not exactly.” Crowley ran a nervous hand through his hair. “I was more thinking you could…well…go down to Hell and steal their files on me.”

“I beg your pardon.”

“Like I said, this is high-level stuff. There’ll be work orders, supervisor sign-offs, _some_ kind of paper trail. And if you can locate that, you can maybe find out what else they’re planning to do. What the next phase is. And we can stop it, or at least brace for it.”

Crowley looked at Aziraphale from beneath his dark brows and waited. Aziraphale didn’t like to peek at people’s auras without their permission, but he allowed himself a glance at Crowley’s, not because he doubted him but because the look in his eyes was too raw. He saw the same blend of anger and protectiveness that Aziraphale was feeling on their behalf, and there was fear there too. Fear that he’d be left to endure whatever was coming next alone, as he’d been doing already.

Aziraphale couldn’t refuse to help him after seeing that. But that didn’t mean Crowley had come up with a good plan.

“Obviously they won’t let me just walk in and start rifling through their files,” Aziraphale began slowly. “And I can’t go as you…”

“Exactly, because I just bet they’re planning on me coming down to find out what’s going on,” Crowley finished. “If you go as me, they’ll try to imprison you or kill you, and either way the jig is up. Holy water for me, hellfire for you.”

“So what are you proposing?”

Crowley started to grin in a way that made Aziraphale extremely nervous.

“I didn’t just buy flowers when I was out.” He snapped his fingers, and a shopping bag appeared on the table in front of Aziraphale. “We’ve done disguises the old-fashioned way before, after all…”

With a sinking feeling Aziraphale began pawing through the contents of the bag. Crowley appeared to have raided an astounding variety of shops to assemble this demonic disguise kit.

“The wigs and makeup I understand, but why did you get so many clothes?”

“Well, we’re going to need to try a couple different looks, I think. Can’t send you down there in bloodstained robes if it turns out you’re more of a studs-and-leather man, can we?”

“This is all a trick, isn’t it? You’re setting me up to be humiliated, and I’m falling for it because I’m an absolute prat.” Aziraphale moved several appalling garments aside, and then drew his hand back sharply. “Are those _live crickets?_ ”

“Yeah!” Crowley retrieved the clear plastic container from the bag and turned it over in his hands. “I thought we could maybe put them in your hair. And they smell horrible, so, you know…” His grin was taking a definite manic edge to it. “Bonus!”

Aziraphale pinched the bridge of his nose and reminded himself that it was not possible for him to be having a stroke right now. 

“Crowley, I think it may be time to consider the possibility that you have _completely lost your mind._ ”

“Look, we can work out the details! That’s not what matters, what matters is _they_ are coming for _us_. After we _showed_ them what happens when they mess with us! Which means they know something we don’t. And I can’t…”

He paused to take a breath, and they both ended up speaking at the same time.

“I can’t risk them coming after you.”

“I won’t let them touch you. Not ever again.”

Crowley’s eyes widened as he realized what Aziraphale had said, and the gratitude in them was naked and utterly heartbreaking.

A short trip to Hell? Aziraphale would set up a summer home there if Crowley asked him to with that look in his eyes.

He picked up his teacup and went to rinse it off in the sink. He set it on the dish rack to dry, and dried his hands with a soft blue hand towel.

“Get those crickets out of my bookshop this _very instant_ ,” the angel said, placing singular emphasis on each word. “And let’s get to work.”

And oh, dear Lord in Heaven above, was it good to see Crowley look so happy.

——

“I look ridiculous.”

“Nah, you look great! Very…” Crowley looked Aziraphale up and down and made a valiant effort to keep a straight face. “Unsettling.”

Aziraphale looked dolefully into the mirror at the levels of depravity that love had driven him to.

He’d unilaterally vetoed the crickets, anything made out of leather and several of Crowley’s more dramatic makeup suggestions. In the end they’d settled on a cheap dark suit, the sort of the thing the regional manager of a failing widget factory might wear. Crowley’s work with the makeup had left the angel’s blue eyes staring out from deep, hollow sockets, his cheekbones sharpened by subtle shades of grey and brown. The longish black wig they’d selected had a greasy quality to it that Aziraphale decided not to ask about, but it did a decent job of concealing his curls.

The effect was ugly, but, Aziraphale had to admit, it was the type of ugly they were going for. Anyone he encountered in Hell would see him, dismiss him as another sullen, unremarkable demon on his way to or from some thankless task, and leave him alone. 

Crowley couldn’t keep still, was pacing the room, picking up random objects to set them down somewhere else, practically vibrating with pent-up energy. Some of it had to be nerves, but Aziraphale suspected there was a level of excitement there as well. This was his lover in his element, the angel realized. Using his cleverness, his imagination and very little else, Crowley was finally being allowed to engage with his enemies, marshaling his forces and preparing to strike. And he appeared to be enjoying it immensely.

Aziraphale hoped that enthusiasm would turn out to be contagious. As it was now, he just felt faintly ill.

“You gotta _slouch_ more,” Crowley urged, seizing Aziraphale’s shoulders from behind and shaking him gently. “That perfect posture is going to be a dead giveaway down there. And remember, _no_ pleases and thank-you’s. These aren’t just demons, they’re demon _bureaucrats_. You don’t show ‘em who’s boss right away, they’ll send you to the back of the line with so many forms to fill out that you might as well discorporate and start over.”

“I know how to deal with bureaucrats,” Aziraphale replied coolly. He’d had the bookshop, in various forms, for centuries, and had wrangled his fair share of zoning officials and tax auditors. He rolled his shoulders back and tried to stand more like Crowley, giving up after a few seconds. Back pain must have been one of those inconveniences that the demon had decided only happened to other people.

“One last thing.” Crowley was rummaging through the shopping bag, came up with something hand-sized and black. “If you’re found out, or if someone needs a little extra persuading…”

He presented the object carefully to Aziraphale. It was a gun, apparently built to hold a type of ammunition the angel was not familiar with. He turned it over in his hands.

“Crowley, this…” he shook it gently. “This is a water pistol.”

“Yeah,” Crowley replied with another manic grin. “You’ll need to bless the water in it, of course.”

“It looks like a real gun. Aren’t these meant for children?”

“I may have modified it a bit. Style’s _important_ , angel, we’ve been over this.”

“Will anyone even be able to tell it shoots water?”

“They will once you unload it into someone’s face,” Crowley answered darkly. He saw Aziraphale open his mouth to protest and cut him off with a hurried wave of his hand. “Only under dire circumstances! They may be too afraid of us to harm you physically, but it doesn’t mean they won’t try to make things difficult if you’re caught. It’s just an insurance policy.”

Aziraphale sighed and tucked the water pistol into the inner pocket of his coat. The ill-fitting drape concealed it well enough.

“We’ve been completely wrong before, you know.”

“Yes, well.” Crowley came up behind him again and wrapped his arms around him, “It all worked out for us in the end, didn’t it? I like our chances.”

“That’s quite the declaration of faith, from a Fallen One.”

Crowley didn’t say anything in response to that. He just smiled.


	6. "That's the way that it goes, when you're down here with the rest of us."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, here we go. Some intense violence in this chapter. Nothing is too graphically described and the tags still apply, but things do get unpleasant.

It took them just over forty minutes to reach the train station.

Normally, such a drive in the Bentley would have taken Crowley a third of that time. Aziraphale knew this very well and had to exercise great control to keep from commenting on it. He knew exactly why Crowley was sticking to the speed limit, bothering to use his turn signals, even declining to miracle traffic out of his way.

The demon was nervous, and he was trying to delay the point at which he would have to say goodbye and let Aziraphale begin his trip to Hell.

Sometime in the night while they worked out the details of their plan, Crowley’s mood had shifted from defiantly cheerful to tense and restless. He chattered endlessly while he drove, needlessly reiterating the instructions he’d given Aziraphale and quizzing him on his cover story. During the rare moments he wasn’t speaking he’d lapse into a cold, distant silence, his eyes focused unblinking on the middle distance.

They finally reached a vacant lot outside an abandoned tube station. Aziraphale was to go to the platform and wait for a train that Crowley assured him would come. There was no timetable to reference. The train came when there was someone at the station who could board it, and only then.

Aziraphale performed a final check of his disguise in the Bentley’s mirror and made sure his pistol was secure. He turned to Crowley and was about to say something bold and cavalier and reassuring, although he hadn’t the faintest idea what it would have been. Crowley cut him off before he could get a word out.

“You’re going to see some things you won’t like, down there.”

Aziraphale let this understatement sink in for a moment before dignifying it with a response.

“Darling, if you truly believe that you needed to tell me that, then you can’t possibly think I’m intelligent enough to carry out this plan.”

“No, no, I’m not…” Crowley scowled and drummed his fingers on the steering wheel. “I didn’t mean it like that. I know you know it’s Hell. It’s just, last time, well, you went as a prisoner, you know? Protective custody. It’s different as…a commuter. This line, it goes through some rough neighborhoods.”

“Does Hell have any other kind?”

Crowley did not smile.

“I just, I know how you are, okay? I know you want to help people, I know you don’t like seeing people suffer. Well, you’re going to see people suffering down there. You’re going to hear them beg for mercy. There’s nothing noble about it, down there. There’s no sense of the Divine Plan, no sense that Her justice is being carried out and all is being done in the service of a greater good. It’s noise and chaos and filth. And you have to just _let it be what it is._ You can’t be a hero, you can’t ease anybody else’s pain because the place _is_ pain. All you can do is protect your own skin and come back to me.”

Aziraphale was stock-still in the passenger’s seat. He was used to Crowley talking about Hell the way that any under-appreciated employee would talk about their boss. When it came to the details of the place or his own day-to-day experiences there, he either made jokes or he changed the subject.

This breathless rush he was talking in was entirely different. The words Crowley was saying were almost unnecessary. The tone in his voice gave Aziraphale all the understanding he needed.

It should have terrified him, but instead the angel found it steeling his resolve. Hell was after the person that he loved. They had hurt him in the past and meant to hurt him in the future, and that could not be permitted.

Aziraphale gently pried Crowley’s hands off the steering wheel and held them. He let his resolve flow outward, his conviction that the task before him was a worthy one, and one that he was worthy of completing. Because it was. This journey into Hell was an act of love, and by completing it he would make the world just a little bit better of a place.

Crowley let out a long, shaky breath and finally managed a ghost of a smile.

“See? Like that. That thing you do where you make people feel better just by existing. Won’t fly down there, love.”

“I know.” Now secure in his function, Aziraphale was serene, his voice cool and measured. “No heroics. No meddling. I go in, I get the information we need, I get out.”

“No dawdling.”

“Of course not.”

“And don’t smile at anyone!”

“Wouldn’t dream of it.”

“And don’t forget-“

“ _Crowley_.” A gentle white glow was filling the inside of the car; divine purpose, lighting up the angel’s skin like a sheen of sweat. “It’s going to be fine.”

He took the demon into his arms and held him until the glow faded. They kissed, once, twice, and then a third time, and then Aziraphale slid out of the passenger side door, performed a last-minute spot check in the mirror, raised a hand for goodbye and marched off to the train station.

The Bentley stayed where it was. Crowley had no intention of moving from this spot until the angel was safe with him again.

As Aziraphale ascended the rusted iron steps of the platform, he could already hear the train approaching. It was an old machine, unloved and untended, and the brakes screeched like a dragon with a spear in its side as it slowed to a stop.

There was no conductor, no indication that a fare needed to be paid. The doors slid open and Aziraphale boarded the train to Hell.

As he slid into a cracked plastic seat, he noticed he was not alone. Near the far side of the car sat a slender male figure, in build and posture very similar to Crowley. He wore dark pants and a red hoodie, and on his neck, just below his ear, was a tattoo of a stylized arachnid. He had very pale hair that gleamed silver when the fluorescent lights of the train flickered on, and faded to dust-color when they were off. He was reading or playing something on a mobile phone and ignored Aziraphale, much to the angel’s relief.

With nothing else to occupy his attention, Aziraphale observed the time-honored commuter’s tradition of counting the stations between him and his destination and mentally checking each one off as he passed. _Dis. Pandemonium. Gehenna. Tantalus Crossing._

Outside the window, they were passing tenements, towering soot-black boxes with red light seeping from the windows. He could see silhouettes inside some of them; they didn’t all look human.

_Blight Falls. Blight Corner. Lower Abaddon._

They emerged from a tunnel onto a bridge, over a wide, dark lake where the water rippled with a sluggish, oddly thick quality. The surface was marred with hundreds of round objects that Aziraphale briefly took for rocks, until one bobbed up briefly and he realized they were human heads, submerged to the eyes in whatever muck the lake was made from.

_It’s Hell,_ he told himself as his stomach clenched. _You’re going to see unpleasant things. It’s all part of Her plan, however horrible it may look to you._

_Tonguesville. Traitor’s Circle._ Only two more stops to go.

At Traitor’s Circle the train stopped again and three more demons boarded. They were already engaged in boisterous conversation when the doors opened, and once they were closed into the car the atmosphere in the enclosed space changed noticeably. Their words ricocheted off the metal surfaces, too sharp and loud to ignore, and they were also moving unpredictably, meandering to and fro about the car instead of sitting. Aziraphale watched them from his peripherals as much as he dared and focused his energy on looking as bored and unremarkable as he could.

“Here now! Never seen you before.”

Aziraphale’s heart gave a panicked lurch and he looked up, but the new demons were on the other side of the car. The tallest of the loud three had addressed the spidery demon in the corner, who now looked up sullenly from his phone.

“Well, congratulations then. Now you’ve seen me.”

The tall demon frowned and his two friends ceased clambering over the chairs and turned to regard the spidery one as well.

“Wossat you got?” the tall demon pressed, gesturing at the phone.

“It’s a human invention,” the spidery demon answered. “It’s meant to keep gormless idiots from bothering you in public.” He gave the phone a shake. “I think it might be broken.”

The tall demon’s reptilian features wrinkled in distaste. “Surface dweller, are you? Thought something smelled off in here. Here lads, come and have a look at the humans’ shiny new toy.”

The train slid into the next station and the spidery demon got up. “Sorry boys. No time to chat, business trip and all.”

A smile crept across the tall demon’s face, and his two friends seized the spidery one by the arms and threw him back into the car.

“Not so fast, friend. You’ve forgotten how we do things down here. We haven’t accounted our deeds of the day yet, have we, lads?”

The three now had formed a loose circle around the spider. The shortest, widest one laid a massive hand on the spider’s hoodie-clad shoulder and cleared his throat.

“I have soured a marriage. As a couple passed by me, I led the woman’s eyes to fall upon another man, and I put Lust into her mind. She will have left her husband in a year.”

The third demon grabbed the other shoulder, lisping through a mouth of wickedly curved fangs. 

“I have brought despair to a young woman. I hid behind her mirror, and when she looked into me I told her no one could ever love her. In a month she will be ours.”

The spidery demon tried to throw them off, but they dug in and held him fast as the tall demon leaned forward to speak into his face.

“Not bad, eh? Would you like to hear my deed for the day?”

“Look, I don’t want to make trouble,” the spidery demon answered. For a moment his eyes flicked to Aziraphale, who was busy clenching his fists at his side and forcing himself to count every speck of dirt on the tiled floor in front of him.

_Don’t be a hero, don’t call attention to yourself, don’t, don’t, please don’t._

“No trouble at all,” the tall demon agreed. “Let me tell you my deed for the day. I met a stroppy surface-dwelling _insect_ on the train who needed to be taught a lesson in manners, so me and my boys tore his bloody arm off! How d’you like that?”

The spider thrashed, to no avail. The train was slowing down again. Aziraphale nearly fainted with relief that they were coming to his stop, but that relief was brought up short when he remembered disembarking would require standing and walking. He wasn’t sure in this moment if he could.

There was a horrible sound of snapping bones, and a piercing scream.

The doors slid open and Aziraphale fought the urge to run. He got up and walked, trying to slouch, trying with all his might to exude the aura of a demon at the end of a hard day’s work who had seen this sort of thing play out dozens of times.

“Now, now, stop squealing. It’ll grow back.”

The doors slid mercifully shut behind him, and Aziraphale was left standing alone on the platform of a station marked Fate Street. Crowley had been very specific in his directions about where he was supposed to go from here.

_Because he’s come this way before. Because this is all familiar to him._

Aziraphale took his anger and disgust, compressed it and stored it deep in the back of his mind to be dealt with later. He still had a job to do. His motivation had not wavered.

Crowley was _never_ coming back to this place.


	7. "There's movies going on in my head, and all I can see is the color red."

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Warnings from the last chapter apply to this one as well.

If someone were to ask Crowley’s opinion on the moral fiber of a person who would drink alcohol while behind the wheel of a car, he would have, from a place of firm sincerity, condemned the act as unforgivably wrong and the person committing it as a thoughtless, dangerous animal.

If pressed, he would have had to admit that his opinion had more to do with the integrity of the Bentley’s interior than any sort of sense of social duty. Still, a good rule was a good rule.

But tonight was an exceptional occasion, he would not be actually operating the vehicle for quite sometime, and the cognac he was drinking was the sort of expensive vintage that evaporated practically the moment it was past the lips. Any drop that fell would likely disperse into a high-proof mist before it touched the leather. Still, he kept the flask closed when not actively drinking from it, lest his hand slip. Worrying about the upholstery was a welcome distraction at a time like this.

Aziraphale was likely in Hell by now. He’d gone there for Crowley, at great personal risk to himself, all because Crowley had asked him to. 

Faced with a wide array of ways to feel about this, Crowley found himself trying on each one in turn, tossing them all in a heap and starting over. Here was terror that something would go wrong, that Aziraphale would come to harm because Crowley hadn’t been able to think of a way to handle this without him. Here was swooning like a lovesick teenager that the angel would do something so brave. Here was the giddiness of having an adversary, the rush of confidence that Crowley _would_ triumph, because he was more clever than the lot of them put together and he’d always known it.

Try it on. Take it off. Repeat.

He tried to reassure himself once more. Over the past night and day he and Aziraphale had been meticulous in their planning. Crowley had coached Aziraphale on the lingo and code phrases he would need to ensure the cooperation of the diabolical wage-slaves he would encounter down below. Documents had been drawn up, signatures had been forged. They’d been careful. This would work.

He told himself this, and he drank, and he tried not to count the minutes one by one.

“You waiting for someone, handsome?”

The sound of a voice so close gave Crowley a bad jolt. For a moment he thought it was the radio, that it had found a way to turn itself on and the voices were taunting him again. But no, the voice had come from a human source, someone outside the driver’s side window.

Crowley turned to look, and for a moment all his overtaxed senses registered were colors, and the coded message in each one. Red lips that said “I’m hungry”, pale skin that said “it’s cold, so cold out here all alone”, gold curls that said “I am rare, and I’m so close to you, please touch, you know you want to.”

Enticement. Crowley’s first language. 

“Go away,” he ordered, hoping that that would be enough. He hadn’t ruled out the possibility of needing to stage a sudden rescue, and wanted to preserve his energy for miracles should the need arise.

“Hey, relax, I don’t bite. Just thought you might want some company.”

Her voice was trying to be seductive, but there was a brittleness to it that made Crowley look, _really_ look, past the broad strokes with which she’d been painted.

The colors coalesced into a young woman, or maybe still a girl. She was leaning into the open window, her hair falling to brush against her bony fingers, curled over the window’s edge. She was not dressed for the cold, but she wasn’t shivering, because she had trained herself not to shiver, no matter how cold or scared she got. She wore makeup to make herself look pretty, but she did not feel pretty, had not felt pretty for a long time, and she was worried that she hadn’t done her right eye properly and the fading bruise around it would show through. She didn’t want the man in the fancy car to notice the bruise, because it might make him not want her, or worse, it might make him want her in the wrong way. She was hungry, and cold, and always afraid.

She’d been in Hell for a long time, or so she believed.

Crowley saw all this before he could stop himself, and sighed. He wondered what twisted consequence of free will had brought this woman here, and how her suffering was supposed to serve the Divine Plan.

“Go away,” he repeated. He said it gently, but he put just a little bit of occult force behind it, adding a weight to his words that would make defying them seem dangerous indeed. “This place isn’t safe tonight. Go home.”

The woman coughed an utterly humorless laugh and made a rude hand gesture at him, but she pushed herself off the car and began to slink away into the shadows.

If Aziraphale were here, he would have been able to say something to ease her pain, however briefly. To make the idea of going home sound like something other than a cruel joke. Crowley could practically hear the angel’s soothing, rational voice from the passenger seat, saying something soft and true and comforting. But he couldn’t think of what the words would be.

Well, of course he couldn’t. That wasn’t his job.

With a sigh, Crowley expended a little bit more will, just enough to convince anyone who might happen by that the Bentley and its occupant weren’t worth their time. He didn’t think he had it in him to encounter any more of his disciples tonight.

——

When he’d served in Heaven, Aziraphale recalled, it had been considered in rather poor taste for angels to discuss the details of what went on in Hell.

It was where those who had sinned against God were punished, human and angel alike. As for what those punishments were, the official party line was that Heaven’s servants needn’t concern themselves. If they fulfilled their functions well, they would never have to find out.

Occasionally, one of the more philosophical archangels would offer that Hell was Heaven’s dark mirror image. A place where peace was fear, compassion was violence, loyalty was cruelty. The worst place for an angel to be, because angels were nourished by the presence of the Lord, and Hell was where the Lord’s love could not reach.

Aziraphale in his early years had been content with this knowledge, because at that time all he’d known was contentment. It wasn’t until he took up his station on Earth that his need for knowledge would outgrow his need to please his superiors. And it wasn’t until his arrangement with Crowley that he had felt a need for more information about what Hell was really like.

Crowley had never been forthcoming with details, and Aziraphale hadn’t wanted to pry. He’d always feared that his genuine thirst for knowledge (and later, concern for his friend) would be mistaken for unseemly curiosity. Out of respect, he’d learned to be satisfied with the information he had. Hell was Bad. You didn’t need to be a scholar to figure that one out.

Now, shuffling through the dreary corridors of the internal offices, pressed so close to the demons around him that he could scarcely lift his arms, Aziraphale was taking in a distressing amount of information. 

How many of the demons had wounds on them, for one thing. They concealed them beneath their clothes or bandaged them with filthy rags, but the angel could still spot dried or dripping patches of blood on every fifth or sixth individual he squeezed past. There were the wounded, and then there were those he passed who had blood on their teeth or claws. Aziraphale made sure not to look at any of those ones too closely. Crowley had warned him very specifically about accidental eye contact.

There was the bone-scraping claustrophobia of the corridors themselves to contend with as well. Packed in so close, it was impossible to move far without being grabbed or shoved. It felt like being in the first few seconds of a fight, that moment after the first irrevocable movement but before any pain. Aziraphale had not fought anyone in a very long time, and the anxiety such a sensation was causing him made it difficult to keep his thoughts straight. It would be easy, he thought, to end up wandering in these hallways for days or weeks, lost in this frightened haze.

 _Oh, my love, how were you able to stand it? All those favors we traded, all those times we completed our missions and went our separate ways, I was going back to Heaven and you were coming back to_ this?

Then there were the televisions.

They spat and flickered up in the corners of the hallways. In a human institution they would have been showing newsfeeds or tawdry daytime programs, the kind to keep people docile and distracted while they waited in line.

Here they were showing beheadings. Floggings. Impalements. The blood and the screaming was bad enough, but what shook Aziraphale to the core and threatened to compromise his identity was how ordinary the people in the recordings looked. They were everyday faces of everyday people, people who would come into the bookshop or pass by him on the street. The faces of everyone who had ever died and hadn’t been good enough for Heaven.

_Is this really all part of Her plan? She sees these abominations occurring for six thousand years and still permits it to be?_

Oh, but these were dangerous thoughts to have in Hell. Aziraphale tried to push them from his mind, but every time a fresh horror came up on the screens they’d surge back in again.

Crowley had given him detailed directions, but nothing was marked and it was hard to keep track of where he was among the crush of bodies, so it was considerable relief that Aziraphale spotted a hallway branching off and a door labeled “Audio/Visual Department”. He shoved past the demons straggling in his way, grabbed onto the doorknob like a drowning man clutching at a rope, and dragged himself inside.

The clerk at the desk was wearing what appeared to be some sort of enormous toad on their head, but was otherwise fully human in appearance. They ignored Aziraphale when he came in, a reaction he’d been told to expect. He stifled all of his instincts that were urging him to begin with a “Hello” or “Excuse me” or even a polite cough and marched up to the desk, reaching into his coat pocket as he went.

“I need access to London’s active work orders,” he snapped, shoving a crumpled form under the demon’s nose. “Immediately.”

Large colorless eyes rolled slowly up to meet his own. “And you are?” the demon croaked through blistered lips.

“Malloc the Corrupter,” Aziraphale answered. He tapped the paper in front of him, drawing the demon’s attention to the forged signature glistening on the page. “On behalf of Dagon, Lord of the Files. There’s been a misappropriation of resources and someone needs to pay. You want this buck to stop with you?”

The clerk looked down at the signature, then back up at Aziraphale, and shifted in their seat. The chair moved along with them, and Aziraphale now noticed the chains threaded around their torso, holding them in place.

 _Wage slaves,_ Crowley’s voice echoed in his head. _Told you they can get cute sometimes._

The demon wheeled themselves over to a filing cabinet and came back with a large, battered folio. They set it on the counter in front of Aziraphale and went back to examining their fingernails.

Aziraphale paged through the documents, surprised that there weren’t more of them. He glanced over several reports of electrical malfeasance and noise pollution that were set to plague the eyes and ears of London in the coming weeks, but nothing that sounded enough like the recent subliminal messaging, or any mention of Crowley at all. He shook the folio at the clerk.

“Where’s the rest of it?”

The demon shrugged. “That’s all I have.”

“This isn’t what I need!” Aziraphale mustered his courage and threw the files in the demon’s face, where they bounced off and landed in their lap. 

The demon blinked. The frog blinked too. Neither of them said anything.

Aziraphale scowled and wondered briefly if he should just throw caution to the winds and draw his pistol. Instead, he leaned over and made his best attempt at a menacing growl.

“Who supervises London’s agents?”

A long pause, and a flicker of uncertainty in those pale eyes. “All of them? Duke Hastur.”

“Where can I find him?”

“His office is off Corridor Twelve. But you can’t just walk in and expect to-“

Aziraphale reached out and grabbed the demon’s wrist, and the demon hissed in pain as a wave of angelic magic coursed through them.

“There’s no need for you to remember this conversation, is there?” Aziraphale inquired in his normal voice.

“No,” the clerk said sleepily. “None at all.”

The chains creaked, and Aziraphale could not help but feel pity for the wretched creature. “Sleep now,” he told the demon. “Dream about something you like.”

“Please don’t,” the demon answered faintly, before Aziraphale could complete the miracle. “If I’m caught sleeping again, they’ll sew my eyes open.”

They blinked, and Aziraphale saw a faint tracery of scars along their eyelids.

_Tried to warn you, angel._

Aziraphale released the clerk’s wrist without making them sleep. “Forget this,” he ordered again, and the demon nodded and sank back in their chair.

The angel took a fortifying breath, braced himself for another struggle through the halls, and then, almost as an afterthought, moved the holy water pistol from the inner pocket of his coat to his trouser pocket, where he could hold it in his hand as he walked.

He went off to find Duke Hastur.


	8. "Ignorance, like a gun in hand."

Corridor Twelve was made out of shiny black marble, and was lit by sconces on the walls instead of fluorescent lighting. It was also considerably more deserted than the corridors that the working class demons used to move through Hell.

Aziraphale was grateful for the extra breathing room. His new plan might cause things to get very chaotic very quickly, and he hoped to have as few bystanders involved as possible.

Crowley had come up with a good plan, one based on taking advantage of Hell’s byzantine records structure and extracting the information they needed while leaving no trace behind. It would have worked, if Crowley had been the one carrying it out.

Aziraphale was clever, but he was not by nature a schemer. He knew that many people took his appreciation for all that was pleasant in the world and his generally affable manner as signs of weakness. Even Crowley, he suspected, still made that mistake occasionally. People expected Aziraphale to think his way out of problems, not to fight them, and generally he was fine with that.

But Aziraphale had been made Guardian of Eden’s Gate for a reason. He'd distinguished himself in the First War, and God had put the flaming sword in his hand because She had trusted in his ability to wield it. He’d been blessed by his Creator with strength, and as he watched the miserable creatures that had been cast into this awful place shuffle past him, he felt very much like using it. 

Crowley’s plan had depended upon fitting in, and Aziraphale was quickly realizing he simply could not tolerate what it felt like to fit in here.

The water pistol was not a flaming sword, but he still felt a familiar rush of purpose as he adjusted his grip and rapped on the door to Duke Hastur’s office. By the standards held by the archangel Gabriel, he might have grown soft in his time on Earth, but he still bet he was stronger than the average demon.

And as far as Hastur knew, hellfire couldn’t hurt him. That would certainly help increase his intimidation factor.

He waited, but there was no response. He knocked again, louder, and when nothing happened, he glanced around to make sure no one was watching, broke the lock and stepped inside.

He had no intention of standing on ceremony any longer than he had to. He might as well move quickly.

The office was cluttered, and poorly lit, and old bits of filth and bones were strewn in the corners. It was also unoccupied, and Aziraphale grinned at his continuing good fortune. He’d been prepared to use force to obtain the information he needed, but if he could actually go through Hastur’s files without encountering the demon himself, he might be able to stick to Crowley's plan after all.

He made his way to the rusted filing cabinets and started combing through reams of yellowed forms, keeping one hand on the water pistol for quick access. 

The files contained a great deal of information about various forms of mayhem and unpleasantness that had plagued London and parts beyond in recent decades. Some were events that Aziraphale knew for a fact that Crowley had had a hand in, others that the demon had privately confessed had been entirely human-engineered. Hastur took a great deal more credit for himself in these reports than Aziraphale suspected could be accurate, yet there was still no mention of a recent harassment campaign directed at any rogue agents. No descriptions of new subliminal technology, no dispatches of any personnel to Aziraphale’s bookshop or Crowley’s flat. No mention of either him or Crowley at all, actually.

The angel ground his teeth in frustration and tossed a sheaf of expense reports over his shoulder. There was the sound of fluttering paper and then…nothing. No slap of the forms hitting the floor. Aziraphale took a deep breath and turned around.

Hastur was standing behind him, holding the expense reports he’d caught as they fell and smiling with all his rotten teeth showing.

“And here I was _just_ hoping for an excuse to rip someone’s guts out,” he rasped, dropping the papers and cracking his knuckles. “You’ve made a simple Duke of Hell very happy, you unbelievably stupid git.”

Aziraphale withdrew the water pistol and leveled square between the demon’s eyes. As he did, he noticed his skin had once again begun to glow with heavenly purpose, and took this as a positive sign.

“Come one step closer and I’ll dissolve you where you stand.”

To his credit, Hastur immediately recognized the water pistol for what it was and put his hands up. His eyes flicked from the gun to Aziraphale’s face, and recognition slowly dawned on his brutish features.

“Oh, this is _too_ good.” His laugh sounded like pennies rolling around a drain. “Tell me then, angel, what did that sniveling little snake have to do to get you to come down here and fight his battles for him? He show you what he can do with his tongue? Or did you make him get down and really _crawl_ for you?”

“You know who I am? Good. Saves us both some time.” Aziraphale allowed himself a quick glance at the office door. It stood slightly ajar and there was nothing to stop reinforcements from bursting in any second, but he didn’t dare use a miracle to repair the lock, not when he might need his full strength very soon. “I’m here to let you know in no uncertain terms that you are to Stop. Bothering. Us. I thought by now you people would know better, but it seems I put too much faith in your intelligence.”

“Us?” Hastur inquired, his voice oily with false confusion. “No no, we don’t care about _you_. We can’t even touch you. Did he tell you we were after you both? Awfully self-serving of him.”

Aziraphale had had enough arguments with Crowley to know an attempt at misdirection when he heard it, and soldiered on. “Whatever it is you’re doing to Crowley, it stops immediately. You or your people contact him again, I’ll summon you personally and bind you in a hematite crystal. You can spend a few decades as my paperweight before anyone misses you.”

Hastur laughed again. “Really got you wound around his little finger, hasn’t he? You know what’s good for you, you’ll cut him loose sooner rather than later. He’s not worth the trouble.” Then, in a lower voice, like they were coworkers sharing an off-color joke, “Sure, he’s got a certain…animal magnetism, but you’ll get bored with him eventually. You can ask around if you don’t believe me.”

A series of rather distressing mental images followed in the wake of Hastur’s words, but Aziraphale managed to shove them aside and respond with a weary sigh. “Hastur, I have zero interest in anything you have to say that isn’t, ‘Yes, Aziraphale, I’ll leave you and Crowley alone from now on, terribly sorry about the trouble.’”

“Not even, ‘Oh good, my six o’clock’s early?’”

Two figures appeared in the doorway, lower-level demons clutching file folders and goggling at the scene occurring in their superior’s office. 

“Well don’t just stand there, sound the bloody alarms!” Hastur shouted.

The two demons took off running, and Aziraphale only just managed not to swear. He had to make an escape right away, and he’d gathered exactly none of the information that Crowley had asked him to find.

Crowley would forgive him for coming back empty-handed, he knew. He’d be patient and understanding and would immediately start working on another plan, one that would all too likely rely on Crowley putting himself in more danger to spare Aziraphale another trip to Hell.

“Right,” he muttered to himself. “Plan C, then.”

The room erupted with a glare of blinding, heavenly light.

——

The sky was beginning to lighten in the east, and Crowley was screwing up his courage to go below and rescue Aziraphale.

It had been his contingency plan from the start. He’d kept it to himself, not wanting the angel to feel the pressure of a time constraint and risk making a mistake in haste, but Crowley had no intention of watching the sun come up while Aziraphale was possibly imprisoned in Hell.

He had just banished the effect of the alcohol from his system when the car was engulfed by a brilliant white glare. Crowley’s darkness-adjusted eyes flared with pain and for a moment he whirled about blind, lashing out with his fists at whatever it was that was attacking him. He succeeded in only bruising his hand on the steering wheel, and a short, strangled laugh caught his attention from the backseat. He twisted around as the glare faded and revealed the new occupants of the car.

Aziraphale was in the backseat, wig askew and eyes aglow with flickering blue fire. With him was Duke Hastur. Aziraphale had one arm wrapped around the demon’s throat and the water pistol pressed against his temple. Both were wearing similarly crazed expressions.

“Drive!” Aziraphale shouted, his voice straining with the unfamiliar volume.

Crowley did not put the car in gear. He stared at the two of them over the tops of his sunglasses and blinked, slowly. The image failed to turn out to be a hallucination.

“Aziraphale,” he said slowly. “What did you _do_?”

“We’ll talk about it, alright, but we need to keep moving! They’re going to be looking for him!” Aziraphale shook Hastur slightly, as if Crowley had maybe failed to notice his former boss being held hostage in the backseat of his car. 

“This wasn’t the plan,” Crowley hissed as he started the Bentley’s engine. “This was in no way - not in a _million buggering years_ \- the plan, Aziraphale!”

“I had to change the plan.” The angel’s voice was wild, rough with adrenaline. “It was either bring him up here for questioning or come back with nothing.”

The pre-dawn streets were deserted. Crowley pushed the Bentley up to a speed just a shade beyond irresponsible. He needed to keep his eyes on the road, but he allowed himself occasional furious glances in the rearview mirror. “And how exactly did you plan to _question_ him?”

Aziraphale made a meaningful gesture with the pistol, and Hastur flinched.

“An angel threatening to torture someone just for doing their job,” the duke piped up, his voice strained with the pressure from Aziraphale’s forearm. “Did a number on him, didn’t you, Crawly? You’d probably get a commendation for that level of corruption if we didn’t all hate your guts so much.”

“Hate to say it, angel, but he’s got a point,” Crowley snapped, swerving and barely missing a delivery lorry that had left its lights off. 

“Don’t act like he’s above doing the same thing.”

“I know he’s not.” Crowley looked into the rearview mirror again, trying to catch Aziraphale’s eyes. “But I thought _you_ were.”

Hastur’s eyes were moving between the angel and the demon with growing interest. 

“Sweetheart,” the angel replied in a dark voice that made the hair on Crowley’s neck stand up. “Crowley. My love. Please, shut up and drive the car.”

“Oh, we are going to talk about this later,” Crowley muttered. He gunned the engine and they raced away from the rising sun.


	9. "Loads of people go through life thinking, Take what you can and leave the weak behind."

In hindsight, Aziraphale did wish he’d settled on a plan that didn’t require such close physical contact with Hastur.

The demon smelled terrible, for one thing- perhaps Crowley had had a point about the crickets. More alarming was that the unfamiliar contact was throwing off Aziraphale’s concentration at a time when he badly needed it. He’d expended a great deal of miraculous energy to overpower Hastur and then transport them both out of Hell. His remaining strength was in short supply, and he was suddenly very worried that the demon would be able to sense that.

Because Aziraphale was able to sense things from him. The coiled tension in Hastur’s limbs, waiting for a chance to break free and attack him. The way he leaned his weight as much as possible away from the barrel of the water pistol, flinching every time Aziraphale adjusted his grip. The feverish beat of his pulse against the angel’s forearm.

It had been so very, very long since Aziraphale had been in close contact with anyone except for Crowley. The sensation of a body next to his, held there with the intention of causing pain instead of pleasure, was distractingly alien. But it was far too late at this point to switch tactics, so he tried to focus his attention on explaining himself to Crowley instead.

“Your plan wasn’t going to work,” he said, trying to sound reasonable. It was important for Crowley to know that Aziraphale hadn’t lost his wits entirely. “There _wasn’t_ any information on you. I went through Hastur’s personal files, and it was like you didn’t exist.”

“You should have just come back,” Crowley snapped. He was driving a bit more slowly now, and appeared to be scanning for something along the streets as he drove. “We could have thought of something else. I would never have asked you to _kidnap_ a _duke_ , Aziraphale. They’re not going to be happy about this.”

“He’s right, you know,” Hastur croaked. His eyes rolled up to meet Aziraphale’s, who returned his gaze with icy calm. 

“You said yourself that Hell couldn’t touch me,” Aziraphale replied. “And I think I understand how you people operate down there, now. It’s all about preying on the weak. I thought I’d see Her justice down there, even if you tried to hide it, but…you’re all just _bullies_.” 

A long, exhausted sigh came from the driver’s seat. “I _tried_ to tell you, didn’t I?”

“You did,” Aziraphale answered gently. “I’m sorry I didn’t understand.”

Crowley glanced up into the rearview mirror, caught Aziraphale’s sweet blue eyes shining out of his smudged, tired face.

“’S’alright,” he murmured. “Forgive you, angel.”

“This car smells expensive,” Hastur growled. “You really want to make me be sick all over it?”

“ _Not_ happening.” Crowley looked sharply out the window and then made a sudden left turn, causing the Bentley’s tires to squeal as he drove them through an ornate metal archway.

Aziraphale looked around, took in the stone crosses and squat crypts, all dark and foreboding in the pre-dawn light.

“Good idea,” he said as the Bentley slowed to a prowl through the cemetery. “No one around who can interrupt us.”

“Yeah,” Crowley replied, still appearing to be looking for something. “And if we’re lucky- _yes_. Perfect.”

He stopped the car before a plot decorated with a gleaming new headstone. The grave in front of it was open, the neat walls of sod fresh and sharp, the grave’s future tenant, Aziraphale guessed, waiting in a funeral home somewhere to be given their proper sendoff.

“Oh,” he sighed. “Are you sure, my dear?”

“We’re in it now,” Crowley said flatly. He got out of the car and opened the rear door, seized Hastur by the coat and dragged him out onto the grass. Aziraphale climbed out after him, holding the pistol and taking a relieved gulp of fresh morning air.

“Get in,” Crowley ordered, gesturing at the grave. Hastur complied with a black look, jumping down into the hole and then looking back up at them with a touch of relief on his face.

“Lucky for you, this one’s not consecrated.” Crowley knelt by the edge of the grave, motioning for Aziraphale to come closer and keep the gun on Hastur. “But I bet a lot of the others are. You turn into maggots and try to escape, who knows what you’ll end up burrowing into? So it’s best if you cooperate and get this over with, yeah?”

“You bloody _disgrace_ ,” Hastur spat. “You slithering little traitor, you’re going to _burn_ , Crawly. Every soul in Hell is going to hear you _screaming_ -“

“ _No._ ” 

Aziraphale leaned over the edge of the grave, looking down with cold fury at their captive. Fortified by the fresh air and physical distance from the demon, he looked down at that hateful rotten grin and felt his anger surge anew.

“I thought I made myself perfectly clear.” Aziraphale raised the pistol above his head. “Hell is _done_ with Crowley.” He fired a spray of water into the air. “You don’t get to touch him. None of you do. He’s _mine_.”

Crowley saw the water coming down in a fine mist and edged away from the grave. Fortunately, Hastur had his eyes locked on Aziraphale and didn’t see. Crowley couldn’t blame him; he didn’t want to tear his eyes from the angel himself.

He was _glowing._ He was _beautiful._

The droplets rained down into the grave and Hastur started screaming.

“You can’t do this!” the duke of Hell howled, swiping furiously at the exposed skin on his face. “You’re supposed to be an angel! You’re supposed to show _mercy_!”

Aziraphale looked to have some retort in mind, but Crowley cut him off.

“Cut him some slack, Hastur. He’s had a rough few months. We both have.” He sat down in the grass by the edge of the grave, shifting to a conversational tone. “That’s why we’re here, isn’t it? The harassment, mate, the coded messages, the pictures…what’s the game?”

“I don’t know!”

“He’s lying,” Aziraphale snapped.

“Probably,” Crowley agreed, but he raised a hand indicating that the angel should stand down. “And honestly, Hastur, if I were you I wouldn’t bother. You can see how he gets when he’s angry.” He jerked his head toward Aziraphale, and a slow smile spread across his face. “Just talk to me. Let’s not make this any more unpleasant than it needs to be.”

Hastur’s eyes flicked from Aziraphale, still holding the pistol aloft and faintly vibrating with anger, to Crowley, smiling and fairly lounging in the grass.

“Fine,” he sighed. “Here’s what I know. Sometime last year, upper management had me gather all the files on you. All your projects, all your activities on the surface. Any work you did for us that would have secured human souls for our cause.”

Crowley nodded, and Aziraphale moved a little closer so he could see his lover’s face in profile. At the moment, his features were carefully neutral.

“Then they told me to read through _all_ of them,” Hastur continued, glancing up resentfully between the two of them. “Now personally, I hate reading. Total visual learner, me. But because some of us still have some _fucking_ loyalty around here, I did what I was told. Read about all that brilliant bloody work you did, all that _hands-free_ nonsense you were so proud of. Not a scrap of art to it, if you ask me, but I suppose if you prefer quantity over quality-“

Aziraphale wagged the pistol threateningly, and Hastur got the point.

“What they wanted me to gather was a list of names. Humans who had ended up in Hell because of you, Crowley. And when you think about it, I had a _lot_ to choose from. You brought so much sin into the world, after all, with that little stunt in the garden. There were the classics, of course, whores, rapists, gamblers. But there were plenty of more exotic options, too. Executives who stole money from the foundations they were supposed to run. Tribal leaders who mutilated their daughters to try and keep them pure. Lust and temptation lead to _so much_ bad behavior. So when they asked me to make a list of my, oh, five-thousand or so favorites, well, that part I enjoyed quite a bit.”

Aziraphale felt his stomach sink. Crowley’s face was still a blank mask.

Hastur was grinning easily now, pacing back and forth in the narrow confines of the grave. “Then, I had to gather them all together. _That_ was a job and a half, I don’t mind telling you. Some of them were buried so deeply in our dungeons that it took a few earthquakes to shake ‘em loose. But I got them all together, all those poor lost souls, and of course they all wanted to know _why_.”

Gleeful black eyes locked on Aziraphale.

“That really is the eternal question in Hell, you know. I hear it every day. Why, why, _why_???” The demon blubbered in vicious mockery. “As if they didn’t know. Deep down, they always know. Don’t they, Crowley?”

“What did you do?” Crowley’s voice was tight, as if he was having trouble breathing.

Another black-toothed grin. “I followed orders, didn’t I? I told them why they were in Hell. I told them who they had to blame for the tarnish on their souls. And then,” he spread his arms wide. “I set them free.”

Aziraphale suddenly felt cold all over. He put a hand on Crowley’s shoulder and could feel the tension rolling off of him in hot, sick waves.

“Why?” they both asked in more or less the same instant.

Hastur shrugged. “How should I know? I told you, it was all upper management’s idea. Considering how suicidally reckless it’s made the two of you, I’d say it was a pretty good one.”

“What-“ Crowley’s voice was strangled. He cleared his throat and tried again. “What did you tell them to do? The human spirits?”

“Nothing,” Hastur laughed. “Just told ‘em where to find you. I take it they’ve made a nuisance of themselves? You did always love to go on about how _creative_ your precious humans were, how much better they are at our jobs than us.”

“Call them off.” Aziraphale raised the pistol again, pointing it square at Hastur’s face. “Call them off or I’ll kill you right now.”

“Is he always this dim?” Hastur asked Crowley, then turned back to Aziraphale. “I _set them free_ , idiot. They’re roaming the Earth of their own accord now. As long as _he’s_ up here, they’ll stay up here.”

Crowley was silent. Hastur crept up to the edge of the grave, reached out and put a sympathetic hand on Crowley’s knee.

“You ever work with ghosts? The thing about ghosts is that once you know they’re there, you can’t stop seeing them. You think they’re irritating now, just wait and see. We could probably help you get rid of them, you know, if you came back to Hell. You’d need to work hard to demonstrate your loyalty, but I’m sure you could convince us to give you a hand. You used to be good at _give and take_ , if memory serves.”

His hand slid up Crowley’s thigh and Crowley jerked away, springing to his feet to stand beside Aziraphale.

“Are we done here, angel?” His voice shook a bit, and Aziraphale could see his eyes were wide and yellow behind his glasses.

Aziraphale looked down at Hastur, leering triumphantly from his hole in the ground, and thought honestly about emptying the water pistol into his face. The rage he felt, at Hastur, at all the forces of Hell, was a cold, heavy stone in his chest. Crowley, his love, his beautiful, defiant, incredibly brave demon had beaten these people and clawed his way out into the sun, and they were trying to manipulate his sense of morality and shame him into coming back. Trying to make him appear loathsome in Aziraphale’s eyes, when all Aziraphale cared about was how special Crowley was, how remarkable it was for the goodness in him to have bloomed under such harsh conditions.

Aziraphale gazed down at their prisoner and knew, deep in his heart, that if he destroyed him right then it would be justified. An act of love.

But such an act might make more trouble for Crowley, so he only took his demon’s hand in his own free one and nodded. “Yes. We’re done.”

“Lovely. Now _get me out of this FUCKING hole!_ ” Hastur screamed.

Crowley reached down to pull Hastur out while Aziraphale covered the both of them with the pistol. Once he’d regained his balance and dusted off his coat, Hastur turned to Crowley.

“The only reason I’m not coring you into a _bloody weeping shell_ right now is that I know that upper management wants a go at you first,” he snarled. “As for _you_ …” He turned to Aziraphale.

“Tell me,” he growled, stalking forward. He kept his hands up, but he still came close enough that Aziraphale could smell his fetid breath. “Did you enjoy that, angel? The feeling of making someone helpless? Knowing you could hurt someone, knowing you could make them do _anything_? Felt good, didn’t it? You can tell me.” He nodded at Crowley. “Or him. It’s nothing to be ashamed of. Not where we come from.”

He looked between the two of them one last time, and spat on the ground.

“You two deserve each other,” he said, and vanished in a plume of oily flames.

Aziraphale let his breath out in a long, trembling rush, and dropped the pistol to the ground. That stupid wig was still hanging off his head, and he ripped it off and threw it down as well.

Long, slender beams of sunlight were creeping over the horizon. Crowley stood illuminated in one, threads of scarlet standing out in his hair. Cast in the morning light his features were softened, vulnerable.

“Aziraphale,” he said quietly. “I’m so sorry.”

“Whatever for?” Aziraphale’s voice was mild, without a trace of mockery. Crowley was surprised by this.

“For asking you to go to Hell for me,” Crowley explained. “For making you see and hear…that.” He waved his hand at the open grave. “All the trouble I’ve put you through, all this risk, and it’s _my fault_.”

His voice cracked, and Aziraphale couldn’t stand that, wouldn’t stand for that broken tone in his lover’s voice. He went to him and threw his arms around him.

“No, no,” he whispered, reaching up to stroke Crowley’s hair. “You’ve nothing to be sorry for, my darling, this is _good_. At least we know what we’re dealing with now.”

“You shouldn’t…” Crowley took a shaky breath and tried again, his voice steadier this time. “You shouldn’t have to deal with anything, you’ve never hurt anyone. This is all because of what I made people do-“

“That’s not how free will _works_ , Crowley.” Aziraphale pulled him into a kiss, looked into his eyes. “You didn’t make anyone do anything. They’re fools if they think I wouldn’t understand that.”

They stood for a moment, foreheads pressed together, and then Crowley said in a small voice:

“Maybe I should go back.”

Aziraphale looked up sharply. Crowley’s face was grim.

“Maybe it would be for the best. Before it…gets worse. Hastur’s right, you know. Hauntings tend to escalate when the spirits are found out.”

“Sweetheart.” Aziraphale laid a hand on Crowley’s cheek. “Can’t you see that’s exactly what they want?”

“But if we can’t-“

“We _will_ ,” Aziraphale said firmly. “We will figure this out, Crowley. Together. You’re _not_ going back to them. Unless…”

Aziraphale thought about some of the things Hastur had said. About some of the things _he_ had said.

_He’s mine._

Heavens, that was no way to talk about your companion, was it? As if they were a possession, as if they had no choice of their own whether to stay or go?

“Unless that’s…what you want? If you…if you’d prefer it down there, I mean. I know it’s not- well- _exciting_ , living with me, and I suppose if you’d feel you need a break, you could always…” He looked down at his shoes, ashamed, suddenly, at all he’d been presuming. “Or I could go with you. It’s up to you. I just mean, well, you can do…whatever you want…”

He trailed off, and when no response came he hazarded a look back up. Crowley was goggling at him; shock, amusement, love all warred on his face.

“Angel,” he breathed. “Get in the car.”

Despite the exhaustion following a major expense of both miracles and adrenaline, Aziraphale felt his heart begin to race a bit. A smile tugged at the corners of his lips.

“That’s a no to going back, then?”

“Get. In. The car.”

“Are we…fighting?” Aziraphale’s tone was half teasing, half serious. “I’m afraid I’ve quite lost track of whether you’re angry or not.”

Crowley kissed him, hard enough that Aziraphale could feel his fangs behind his lips.

“I’m bloody furious,” he hissed. “And I’m scared to death. And I love you _so much_ , my clever, reckless, mad angel.” His voice grew low and dark. “I’d very much like to show you how much I love you. But not here.”

Aziraphale got into the car.


	10. "Try like me, to seek your pleasures three at a time."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Plot picks up again next chapter. Today, I indulge myself.

Crowley didn’t even realize he was driving to his flat in Mayfair until they had just about arrived. It was an act of pure muscle memory, guiding the Bentley one-handed through the awakening city while his thoughts rolled and crashed.

Over the millennia in which he’d worked with humans, Crowley had heard, he was certain, every possible justification there was for having sex that one would be better off not having.

He’d been amused by it, most of the time. It was endearing, really, the mental knots that humans twisted themselves into. How much happier they’d be, he’d often thought, if they just admitted to themselves that they fucked because they wanted to.

Now here he was, helping himself to all of those excuses by the greedy handful, because he and Aziraphale needed to have a serious discussion, and that Was Not Going to Happen. Not until Crowley dragged him upstairs and had every bit of his way with him, first.

Because he was angry enough to burn London to the ground if he couldn’t find something to sufficiently distract him. Because he needed to erase the feeling of Hastur pawing at him. Because for all he knew, this time would be the last time, now that he knew for sure that Hell was in no way done with him. Because Aziraphale had been a vision standing there, brandishing his weapon, declaring Crowley _his_ , and Crowley, sinful creature that he was, could not be content to merely look upon such beauty, he had to touch. Because he was scared, and sought refuge from his fear in his lover’s arms. Because maybe, for a moment, he would forget what his sinfulness had wrought, what now followed him as a constant reminder of the pain his existence had caused.

Excuses. Plentiful, none of them particularly good, none of them enough to cease the shame and rage churning in his mind. But they would do, for a little while.

A tiny sigh from the passenger seat snapped him back to his surroundings. How strange, that one’s thoughts could be utterly consumed with someone and you could still forget they were right there, right next to you. Did that happen to humans as well? 

The angel had his eyes closed, his head tipped back against the seat. Bathed in golden light, serene, holy, and all Crowley was thinking about was if he could trust the Bentley to coast on her own for a few minutes so he could lean over and sink his teeth into that long line of neck…

“Crowley,” Aziraphale said without opening his eyes. “I’m sorry if that was…inappropriate of me.”

Crowley nearly choked. “Inappropriate? Completely binning our plan, kidnapping my old boss, waving a gun around like you’re, what, James Bond’s bloody fever-dream? The best word you can think of to describe all that is _inappropriate_?”

“Oh, I don’t mean all that,” Aziraphale replied quietly. “I hope you’re not cross with me, of course, but I’m glad I did it. I just meant, what I said about you.” He cleared his throat. “Being mine. You’re not, of course. You’re your own. And I’ve no right to decide what you do, I know that. So I’m sorry if you felt…disrespected. By me.”

“Disrespected.” Crowley said the word as if he’d never heard it before.

“It’s no excuse, I know,” Aziraphale went on. “And it’s not like I didn’t know what Hell was _for_ , but seeing it firsthand, the way they treat _each other_ down there, and well…I thought about it happening to you and I suppose I…lost my head a bit.” He sat up straighter and looked at Crowley directly, blue eyes heartbreakingly honest. “So for that, I’m truly sorry.”

They’d arrived at Crowley’s flat. He switched off the car and for a moment held the keys in his hand as if he’d forgotten what they were for. Then he started to laugh.

The sound was loud and sharp, the sort of laughter that threatens to turn into hysteria if left unchecked. He fought to steady his ragged breathing, raked his fingers through his hair and looked up at Aziraphale, who still looked as if he expected a response- and was somewhat nervous about what it would be.

“Angel,” Crowley sighed. “What am I going to do with you?”

“Forgive me?” Aziraphale guessed hopefully.

“Forgive-“ Crowley bit his lip to keep another bout of laughter at bay. “Yeah. Alright. We’ll start with that.”

“And then, well, it sounded like you had some other ideas, back at the-“

He was cut off by Crowley seizing him by his lapels and fairly dragging him out of his seat, kissing him fiercely, kissing him the way you _should_ kiss someone who’d gone to Hell for you. Someone who’d gone where love and dignity went to die and came back honestly caring that _you_ were alright, that you felt _respected_ …

“Although-“ Aziraphale managed when Crowley let him up for air, “I would like to maybe wash up a bit. Think I still smell a bit like brimstone.”

“I hadn’t noticed.” Crowley reluctantly untangled himself from Aziraphale so they could both exit the car. “But yes, of course. Why don’t you wash up, before we-“

“I was actually thinking of more, well, _during_ …”

Crowley made a sound like he was thinking about swearing but couldn’t quite remember how. “Yes,” he finally managed. “Let’s. Um. Do that.”

——

The shower in Crowley’s flat was a black tile and frosted glass affair; not, Aziraphale guessed, designed to be comfortable to stay in for a long period of time. 

Still, he was in no hurry to get out. Not with the steam and spray chasing away any sensory memories of Hell, and certainly not with Crowley pushing him back against the smooth tile wall, sucking a line of wet marks into his neck and shoulder.

He wasn’t a fool. He knew he and Crowley needed to talk, and he knew Crowley was deliberately putting that conversation off. But he’d already indulged several base instincts today. He supposed one more wouldn’t hurt.

_Felt good, didn’t it?_

No, no, those thoughts, that voice, they had no place here. He ran his hands up the familiar contours of Crowley’s back, lightly raked his nails down between his shoulder blades and was rewarded with an urgent, full-body shudder.

“Yesss…” Crowley groaned against his neck. “More of that, _please_.”

Aziraphale obliged, digging his nails in a little harder this time, and was pleased to discover that by applying this sort of pressure in different spots he could elicit an enticing array of growls and whimpers from the demon in his arms. 

“Want-“ Crowley managed to choke out, before another well-placed pass of Aziraphale’s fingers over his ribs brought him up short.

“What do you want, sweetheart?”

“Want to please you,” he murmured, his lips tracing a path from Aziraphale’s throat to his chest. “Can I?”

“You do,” Aziraphale answered, eyes helplessly fluttering shut. “Everything you do…always… _oh_.”

The water splashed against his face as Crowley tracked lower, reminding Aziraphale of the rain at the beginning of the world. It had rained on the day he’d met this beguiling creature and even then his heart had craved him, to touch, to protect…

“Your hands on me,” Crowley pleaded from his new position on his knees. “While I…angel, please, will you-“

“Anything, my love.” Aziraphale ran his fingers through Crowley’s hair, traced along the curve of his jaw. “Good, that’s good, you’re so-“

_Did you make him get down and really crawl for you?_

The sudden, unwelcome memory made Aziraphale involuntarily tighten his fist in Crowley’s hair. His eyes flew open at the sharp gasp that came in response and he looked down, ready with a frantic apology.

Crowley was looking up at him, pupils narrowed to feral slits, chest heaving.

“ _Again_ ,” he rasped.

Aziraphale had the distinct sensation of being back in the passenger seat of the Bentley, watching Crowley whip them right up to the edge of fiery destruction while he held on for dear life.

Cautiously, he moved his hand to more firmly entangle Crowley’s wet, scarlet locks between his fingers.

And carefully, not daring to break contact with those gleaming golden eyes, he _pulled_.

Crowley responded by grabbing him by the hipbones, slamming him back against the shower wall, and making it impossible to think clearly about _anything_ for quite some time.

——

At some point they transitioned from the shower to the bed. It had all become something of a blur to Aziraphale. He was dimly aware that his muscles were sore and that his skin was raw in places from Crowley’s feverish attentions. Strictly speaking, they weren’t supposed to need to worry about things like chafing. Or dehydration. But Crowley seemed determined to push their human bodies to the limits of what they could tolerate without miraculous interference. 

At least, Aziraphale was reasonably sure Crowley wasn’t using any demonic magic. Granted, he _was_ recovering awfully quickly between climaxes.

He managed to get Crowley to lie back into the expensive black sheets and just breathe for a minute. The demon had a fine sheen of sweat across his face and chest, but no other indication that he was in any way tired or ready to stop. Aziraphale sat up, black satin tangled around his waist, and when Crowley reached for him he gently pushed him back down with a hand on his shoulder. 

“Maybe a bit of a break, love?”

Crowley actually had the gall to look disappointed, but he lay back and closed his eyes. “Right,” he sighed. “I’m sorry. I’m just-“

“Trying to avoid talking or thinking about Hell by screwing me absolutely senseless, yes, I know.”

Crowley twitched and opened one eye, taking in Aziraphale sitting there with his hands folded, politely waiting to be confirmed correct. Reluctantly, he laughed and rolled onto his side.

“You think you’re sooo clever,” he muttered into a pillow.

“I _am_ clever,” Aziraphale answered, snuggling down next to him. “And as you well know by now, I’m not afraid to take risks-“

A sound, muffled by the pillow, that might have been a snort of laughter.

“-so really, I’m exactly who you _should_ be wanting to talk to right now. Not that the last-“ he took a quick glance at the clock on the bedside table, “-three hours haven’t been delightful, but I’m beginning to worry that you think I’m good for nothing else.”

“Come on, now,” Crowley said with a grimace. “You know it’s not like that.”

“What’s it like?” Aziraphale voiced the question patiently, gathering up Crowley’s hands in his own and holding them against his chest. “Crowley, please. You can talk to me.”

“I-“ Crowley bowed his head over their clasped hands. “They…they want to separate us, right? That’s why they’ve done what they’ve done, they want to remind us both of what I am. Want to remind _you_ what type of creature you’re choosing to be with. Hoping that if you’re confronted with the suffering I’ve caused, day after day, you’ll…stop choosing me.”

“That won’t happen.”

“But they’re not going to _stop_ -“

“And _I don’t care._ ” Aziraphale brushed his lips over Crowley’s knuckles. “Crowley, whatever happens, I swear, I will never-“

His words were swallowed by an ear-splitting burst of noise.

It was so loud and so sudden that Aziraphale’s first thought was that a bomb had been dropped on the building. When he failed to find himself laying in a heap of ash and rubble, he threw back the sheets and looked around wildly, but no infernal beast or invading army came tearing into the bedroom.

The noise went on, so loud it was like an invisible hand clenching around their heads. There was an snapping buzz underneath it all, the sound of a piece of electrical equipment making up its mind whether to explode. Aziraphale remembered Crowley’s very sophisticated sound system, the speakers he’d strategically hidden about the flat so that music seemed to just come out of the walls. Crowley listened to many forms of music that weren’t to Aziraphale’s taste, but the angel guessed that whatever they were hearing now was beyond the ambition of even the most aggressively modern noisemakers. It was just layers and layers of voices, some crying, some screaming, some shrieking with laughter, on and on without pause or breath or form…

Except no, there _were_ words, nearly lost in all the chaos, but if Aziraphale forced himself to focus through the pain he could hear them…

" _We’re heeeeere…we seeeee yoooouuu…Crowleeeeey…_ ”

Aziraphale looked to his side, where Crowley was huddled into a ball, his hands fisted over his ears, his face twisted up in pain. The screams went on, rising to a hideous crescendo, and Aziraphale put one hand protectively on Crowley’s shoulder and snapped his fingers with the other.

The sounds cut out with a _CRACK_ that left their ears ringing. For a moment there was blessed silence, followed by some soft electrical pops and hisses. 

Slowly, shakily, Crowley uncoiled himself. He pulled himself into a seated position with every muscle tensed, desperately braced for the next assault. Aziraphale put an arm around his shoulders and held him, felt his trembling subside bit by bit as each second of silence crept by.

A thin trickle of black smoke began to gather around the ceiling, and was swiftly joined by the persistent _beep beep beep_ of the smoke alarm.

“Did you set my stereo on fire?” Crowley asked, without easing his grip on the angel in the slightest.

“I suppose I must have,” Aziraphale admitted, “So sorry. I only meant to turn it off. Here, let me-“

Crowley waved a hand lazily, and both the smoke and the beeping disappeared.

“Don’t leave.”

“I won’t.” 

“Aziraphale… _please_ …”

“I won’t.” Aziraphale wrapped his arms tightly around Crowley, all but pulling him into his lap, and glared out into the empty flat beyond the bedroom as if all the forces of Hell were hovering in the doorway.

“I’m not going anywhere.”


	11. "I'm sorry that I hurt them, did I hurt you too?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had to decide whether to break up this next bit of plot into smaller chapters or leave it as one massive plot-bomb, and opted for the former. So angsty fluff today, dark magic tomorrow. Or, tomorrow-ish.

The first real winter storm of the season was just beginning to settle over London, and inside Aziraphale’s bookshop all was cold and still.

Aziraphale let himself in the front door, juggling his keys and the morning’s post in one hand, a bag of groceries in the other. He set the groceries on the floor and paged through the mail, humming softly to himself as he did.

Inside the shop, the shelves were washed in dusty grey light. All was silent but the rattling of the windows as the wind picked up and the faint _tick tick_ of the building’s belabored heating system.

Generally Aziraphale could tell whether the mail was worth opening based solely on the name of the addressee. Three different incorrect spellings of his business name, three direct trips to the recycling bin. But the fourth piece was personally addressed to “Messrs. A. and C.,” and Aziraphale recognized the return address well enough.

He regarded the gusts of swirling white outside the bookshop windows, and with a sense of relief locked the front door behind him. Aziraphale doubted anyone would bother coming out to the bookshop in this weather, but if the letter from Jasmine Cottage contained the information he hoped for, he was not about to risk being interrupted, especially by the type of intrepid soul stubborn enough to go shopping in a snowstorm.

He went upstairs and put the kettle on while he put away the groceries. Those tasks finished and a cup of tea in front of him, he opened the envelope he’d been waiting for. Inside, there were several parchment sheets paper-clipped together, written on in black in Aziraphale’s own precise hand and in red in an equally precise (almost challengingly so) lady’s script. There was also a plain sheet of notebook paper written on in the same hand as the red ink, which Aziraphale now read.

_Dear Mr. A,_

_While I still haven’t made up my mind how I feel about surprises, I can safely say that hearing from you was a pleasant one. Newt and I are both doing very well, thank you so much for asking. I was terribly sorry to hear about Mr. C’s condition. I do hope that once he’s well enough to travel again you both can make it here to Tadfield for a proper visit._

_Enclosed you’ll find the original transcription that you sent with my notes added. Considering that both the spell caster and the subject are not strictly human and the scale is much grander than the original spell’s intention, I made some adjustments. I do wish to emphasize that you should read the instructions carefully several times before making any actual attempt. I also would be remiss if I did not mention that this is purely theoretical; I am not sure that a spell like this has ever been attempted on someone with Mr. C’s unique qualities. Measure twice, cut once is good advice everywhere, Mr. A, but especially in witchcraft._

_Please feel free to write again or telephone if you have any other questions, and the best of luck to you both._

_Fondly,_

_Anathema._

_P.S. Newt says hello._

Aziraphale read the note, and then turned his attention to the parchment sheets. He sipped from his rapidly cooling cup of tea.

“Crowley?” he called into the still air of the flat. “Could you come out, darling? There’s something I want to show you.”

There was a rustling sound from on top of the refrigerator, and Aziraphale reached a hand up without looking away from what he was reading. He shivered from the sensation of cool scales brushing against the bare skin of his hand and wrist.

He held his arm up in front of him and smiled gently at the black snake that was now coiled around it from his wrist to his elbow.

“Come on, dear boy, it’s safe. And I can never tell what you’re thinking in this form.”

There was a moment’s pause, and then the snake traveled up his arm to drape itself over his shoulders. Aziraphale ran a reassuring hand over the silky black scales, and there was a sudden change in weight and pressure that left him momentarily disoriented.

Then the sensation passed and all that was left was Crowley, wrapping his arms around him, leaning over Aziraphale’s shoulder to look at the letter on the table.

“Wrote back fast, didn’t she?” he remarked after he had scanned Anathema’s note.

“I may have-“ Aziraphale’s words were cut off by a gasp as Crowley slipped one of his hands inside his shirt. “How is it you’re _colder_ in human form?”

“Takes a while for my circulatory system to adjust to having limbs again. You may have what?”

“I _may_ have implied that time was of the essence. You can only hide out as a snake for so long before Hell gets impatient and tries something else.”

Crowley shrugged. “Probably have a few decades before they come up with another idea.”

“Crowley.” Aziraphale covered the hand that was resting against his bare skin with his own, trying to rub some warmth into it. “I miss you.”

“I’m right here.”

“I miss _us_. I miss…the world, with you in it.”

A soft, hurt sigh. “I know.” Crowley loosed his grip on him, began to pull away. “I’m sorry.”

“No, no,” Aziraphale said quietly. He turned to face Crowley and took the demon’s face between his palms. “You don’t have to apologize. You slept through most of the nineteenth century and I managed to keep myself entertained then, didn’t I?”

Crowley didn’t look entirely convinced, but he forced a smile and nodded at the letter from Anathema. “So what does our cycling enthusiast recommend?”

Aziraphale turned back to the pages and let Crowley read over his shoulder. The document, transcribed from one of Aziraphale’s weathered tomes on human magic, was titled, “On the Appeasement of Vengeful Spirits.”

It had been difficult to track down a ritual that had even, well, a ghost of a chance of working. Due to Crowley’s demonic nature, traditional exorcisms and warding spells were out of the question. Binding had shown promise until Crowley had pointed out that the restriction of five-thousand enraged, damned souls would create a location so violently haunted that humans would inevitably be drawn to it.

“They make television programs about that sort of thing nowadays, angel,” Crowley had hissed, coiled around Aziraphale’s neck during a research session. “I can see the entertainment byline now: Who is Anthony Crowley, and why is this tree in Shropshire screaming about what a bastard he is?”

“We could bind them in a rock and then, I don’t know, throw it into the sun? Or a black hole?” Aziraphale had suggested mildly, and he felt Crowley’s scales ripple with surprise.

“The destruction of five thousand wandering souls? _Someone_ Upstairs would notice that, don’t you think?”

In the end, Aziraphale had agreed. Which had brought them to the idea of persuading the spirits to stand down and, eventually, to penance.

Aziraphale waited patiently as Crowley read over the spell and Anathema’s notes. She’d made various suggestions on words and symbols that would need to be changed, as well as several warnings at what might happen if her instructions were ignored. There was a stern tone throughout these warnings, and, in a few instances, illustrations.

Crowley tapped a finger on the word _sacrifice_ , which had been underlined and then accented with a large red question mark.

“Surprisingly unhelpful for her, yeah?”

“Perhaps the lady didn’t feel it was her place to make suggestions,” Aziraphale answered charitably. “It is a rather personal decision.”

“You don’t say.”

“Don’t get stroppy,” the angel chided. He gazed down at the word _sacrifice_ , the letters seeming to undulate on the page. “I believe the customary offering is a finger bone.”

Crowley spread his hands in front of them, fanning out the fingers on the right and miming a pair of scissors on the left. He chopped at his index finger and made a _snkt_ sound, then wrapped his arms around Aziraphale again.

“I’m not sure it’s enough,” he finally said.

“Seems extreme enough to me.”

“For a human, sure, but this body, well…” he squeezed the angel’s ribs. “It’s just a body, isn’t it? I discorporate, I end up in a new one, I’ve got ten fingers again. And I _know_ that. So it can’t really be a sacrifice, if I know there’s a way to get it back, can it?”

“So what’s the alternative?”

“I have an idea, but…” Crowley released Aziraphale so he could pace about the kitchen, walking a little unsteadily on legs he was no longer used to having. “Do you think this is going to work?”

“I think it can,” Aziraphale said. He shuffled through the pages again. “The only thing is- well- that is, I just wonder-“

Aziraphale was sputtering in the way that meant he was about to say something offensive, and Crowley recognized it right away.

“Aziraphale? Demon, here. I promise whatever it is you’re trying to say, I’ve heard worse.”

“The root of this spell is _contrition_. True, heartfelt penance that the spirit, or spirits in this case, will be able to sense. If it isn’t sincere, they’ll know, and the spell will be worthless.”

Crowley stopped pacing. “Are you saying you don’t think I’m really sorry?”

“I’m saying I don’t think you _should_ be!” Aziraphale slapped the papers back down on the table, and forged on with the air of someone reciting a speech he’d been rehearsing for quite some time. “It’s free will, Crowley. Those souls went to Hell because of the choices _they_ made, not because of something you made them do. Hell made those poor things think that if not for you, none of them would be there, but I don’t believe that, and…” He glanced up at the ceiling. “I don’t think _She_ does either.”

Crowley’s eyes flicked up to the ceiling and back, very fast. “Not my place to worry about what She thinks, angel.”

 _I still think it might be mine,_ Aziraphale thought but did not say. Now was not the time for a discussion about his relationship with God and Heaven. “So what do _you_ think?”

“About my, what, cosmic debt? Well…” Crowley shoved his hands into his pockets and gazed at the floor. When he spoke, his words also had the weight of something that had been held in the mind for a long time. “I’m sure you’re at least part right. Some of those souls would have ended up in Hell whether I’d had anything to do with them or not. But some,” he shrugged, “some probably wouldn’t have. And…yeah. I regret that. I don’t know what that regret is worth, but it’s real.”

Aziraphale nodded, and took a sip of his tea, now ice cold. The silence that settled in the kitchen was heavy, oppressive. He missed the radio.

“You know,” Crowley said with a smirk, “I think I liked these debates about free will more when it was just an excuse to get drunk and flirt with you.”

Aziraphale allowed himself a tiny smile. “I’m sorry, plundering my best wine and falling asleep on my couch while I was trying to make a point was your way of flirting?”

“You loved it.”

“I did,” Aziraphale admitted. “Darling, do you think tonight you might-“

He stopped. Crowley was no longer looking at him, was gazing wide-eyed past the angel at something beyond the kitchen doorway.

“Angel,” he said in a voice suddenly hoarse with fear. “I need to change back now.”

Aziraphale looked where Crowley was looking. He saw something there, something like the heat haze coming off a fire, and if he squinted he could almost tell himself it was in a human shape.

He knew that Crowley was seeing something else. That if he asked Crowley to describe it, he’d be able to give a vivid account not only of what the thing looked like, but what it had to say. Since Hell’s plot had been revealed and Crowley had banished all audio and visual equipment from the bookshop, the ghosts had taken to appearing one by one. They couldn’t touch, but they could get very close, could lie down next to Crowley in bed or sneak up and whisper in his ear. They could show him their wounds. They could remind him what waited for him, in Hell, when he finally gave in and came back.

It was easier to hide from them in snake form. He found the ghosts wouldn’t chase him behind a bookshelf, or up the sleeves of Aziraphale’s coat. And as a snake it was easier for him to pass the time, now that he didn’t leave the shop or listen to music or drive anymore. Easy to be content just sleeping and waiting. 

Aziraphale understood, so he bit his tongue and didn’t tell Crowley how much he hated it. The only upside was that a pet snake had been a marvelous development in his ongoing task of keeping customers away from the bookshop. But Aziraphale didn’t want a pet. He wanted his friend. 

He turned away from the apparition in the doorway to ask if Crowley might reconsider, but the demon had already collapsed back into his serpent form. Aziraphale knelt down and extended his arm, and Crowley gratefully slithered up his sleeve, his scales raising goosebumps on the angel’s skin.

The apparition wavered in the doorway, but did not disappear. This too was not new. They often camped out, waiting for Crowley to show himself. 

Aziraphale scooped up the papers and carried them into the living room. The book from which he’d transcribed the original spell was still open on an end table, and he meant to go through it several more times before gathering the items he would need for the ritual. For now, though, he bypassed it in favor of another well-worn volume, balanced on the arm of the couch.

“Where’d we leave off, darling?” he murmured as he settled down with the book open in his lap.

A brush, and then Crowley’s head poked out from beneath his collar, his tongue flickering out to taste the air.

“Chapter seven, I think,” he answered, his voice so small it was more felt than heard.

Aziraphale found the correct page and began to read silently, always asking Crowley if he was ready before turning to the next page. Every so often, Crowley would disappear beneath his clothes again, and Aziraphale would stroke his scales and wait for him to come out before continuing.

Outside, the snow swirled and the wind howled, rattling the windows like the tapping of urgent, seeking fingers.


	12. "Dear lover, I can't believe it's come to this."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First of all, I want to thank everyone that has read and commented so far! Historically I'm comment-shy, but you all have been very sweet and made me feel less alone in this weird-ass timeline we're in.
> 
> Secondly, this chapter and the next will be the darkest in the story. I've tried to update the tags accordingly. This chapter also contains frank discussion of suicide and suicidal ideation, including one of the ghosts trying to make a "pro" argument for same. I bring this up because I want to stress that this is an opinion I do _not_ share and do not advocate. Sometimes those voices from the darkness are flat-out wrong, and this is one of those times.
> 
> That said, I hope you'll stick with me on this journey. These next two are the heavies, but there's a lot of love in the chapters to come.

A week passed before they began the ritual, during the last three days of which Aziraphale gathered the necessary supplies and Crowley sat up in the darkened bedroom, silent and alone.

The spell had recommended the subject be in a physically and emotionally pure state before beginning. Anathema had been too polite to point out that that ship had well and truly sailed long ago, but she’d still suggested that a good dose of solitude and contemplation couldn’t hurt. Hedging one’s bets, and all that. She was a smart girl. Crowley hoped he’d see her again someday.

Almost immediately after Crowley had shut himself in the darkness, the ghosts came for him again. He heard their voices in the creaking of the eaves and saw their shapes in the shifting patterns of light that made it through the curtains. At some point he realized he’d summoned his wings from their metaphysical plane and had wrapped them around himself like a cocoon, a protective gesture that did absolutely nothing. His ghosts bent to him and whispered their stories, and Crowley sat on the floor in the dark and waited.

The third dawn was turning the shaded windows grey when he blinked and reopened his eyes to see a figure sitting in front of him. A woman, younger than Crowley’s human age appeared to be, but worn-in, lines around her eyes grimed with old makeup. Dry cracked lips, short dark hair brittle against her pale cheeks.

Her arms had been carved open from wrist to elbow, blood dried black on her fingertips.

She folded her mutilated arms in her lap and smiled weakly at Crowley. Some of them laughed at him, when they appeared in their old forms like this, but he hadn’t seen one smile before.

“You know, I didn’t even believe in God,” she said in a throaty whisper, as if her voice hadn’t been used in a long, long time.

“Yeah, well…” Crowley peered at her from between his wings and offered a crooked smile. “Not how it works, right? She believed in you, I think is how it goes.”

“Did She?” the ghost replied. Her tone was not accusing, just curious. “Could’ve fooled me. I’d thought about doing this-“ she raised her arms- “since I was fourteen. Took twenty years for me to have the guts to go through with it. Nice long time for Her to turn things around for me, if She’d wanted. Don’t you think?”

Crowley shrugged. She’d start in on him now, he knew, telling him what convoluted way their paths had crossed and how his interference had led to her spending eternity in the Wood of Suicides, reliving her pain again and again. He’d heard it before. He’d heard _all_ of it before.

“We’re not all angry with you, Crowley.”

That was a new one. He raised his head a bit, waited for her to continue.

“The angry ones are just the loudest. Some of us are here because we want to help. It gets lost in all the noise, but we want to make you understand.”

“Understand what?”

“That you can’t be good, and you can’t be happy. Your befoul this world with your very presence. Around you, things die. They corrupt. Even the good things. Look at your angel.”

Crowley’s eyes narrowed. “Don’t talk about him.”

“He’s supposed to a be a creature of pure love, and all he does now is worry about you. He does it because he loves you, but loving you makes him _worse_.”

“Stop it.”

“I understood it too, in the end. My friends were worried about me, my boyfriend was worried about me…all this pain just because I existed, and because something in me had been built wrong. I knew I’d never stop causing pain to people who cared about me, so I made a choice.”

“And went to Hell.”

“Where I belong,” she said sadly. “Where you belong. You fell, Crowley. Nothing can change that.”

Crowley drew his wings tighter around him, tucked his head so he could no longer see her. 

The air grew cold as the ghost drew close to him. Her voice was a chill wind blowing through his feathers.

“I slipped away for a while, and checked on them. My friends. My boyfriend. I couldn’t hurt them anymore, and they moved on.”

He thought of Aziraphale puttering around the bookshop alone, never straying too far because he wanted to be there if Crowley needed him.

“Your angel will move on. He’d have the whole world again, if you would just _go away_.”

She did not speak again, and when Crowley dared to look up from the shelter of his wings, she was gone.

No one else appeared to him, after that. The sun rose behind the curtains and fell again, and when the light was blue with dusk there was a knock at the door.

For a moment all Crowley saw was light, bright and blinding, almost painful. Then the shapes formed into Aziraphale, standing in the doorway, smiling his sweet, patient smile as if he were merely waking Crowley from a nap.

“Are you ready, love?”

Crowley rose to his feet, stretched out his legs and his wings. He did not feel pure. But he was ready. If the spell worked, he and Aziraphale would be free together once more. If it didn’t…

Well, Crowley would have some choices to make, then. But Aziraphale would get the world back. With him in it or not.

He pulled Aziraphale into his arms, wrapped his wings around the both of them, kissed him like it might be the last time he ever did. 

He hoped it wouldn’t be. But he couldn’t know for sure.

“I’m ready.”

——

He followed Aziraphale downstairs to the back of the bookshop, where the furniture had been moved aside and a large circle had been outlined on the floor with salt. Crowley could see runes drawn into the grains, runes that would contain whatever magical energies were released during the ritual to that spot and minimize the risk of burning down the neighborhood. Another of Anathema’s suggestions.

Crowley moved to step into the circle, but Aziraphale stopped him with a hand on his arm.

“First things first, dear.” He handed Crowley a piece of paper. “Read the items one by one, if you please, and check them off as we go.”

“Come off it, Aziraphale. I know we’re being careful, but a _checklist_?”

“Would you rather get halfway through the ritual and find out we’re missing something?” Aziraphale snapped back, rather testily for him. “Terribly sorry, vengeful spirits, would you mind taking a five-minute break while I pop down to the corner shop? So embarrassing, this is our first time hosting an ancient blood ritual and I’m afraid we’re making rather a mess of it. Sound good to you?”

Crowley made a face, snatched the checklist from Aziraphale’s hand and began to read.

“Candles, one black, one red, one white?”

“Check.”

“Holy water?”

“Check.”

“Salt water?”

“Check.”

“You sure you can tell which is which?” Crowley looked up nervously.

“Of course, but just in case-” Aziraphale lifted up a regular drinking glass, filled almost to the brim, “salt water.” He set the drinking glass down and picked up a ceramic mug, the handle of which was shaped like a pair of wings. “Holy water.”

“Angel, aren’t you the one who warned me this wouldn’t work if we didn’t take it seriously?”

“I _am_ taking it seriously. This is from a vintage set,” Aziraphale answered, setting the mug down once more. 

_One crisis at a time_ , Crowley thought to himself, and turned his attention back to the list.

“Silver bowl?”

“Check.”

“Knife?”

“Check.”

“Fifth of gin? Hang on, what’s that for?”

Aziraphale was already removing the cap from the slim bottle. He took a long pull off of it, then offered it to Crowley. Crowley accepted it after only a moment’s hesitation, savoring the way the sharp-tasting liquid burned his throat and cleared his head.

“Right. Let’s get this over with.”

The two of them stepped into the circle and sat on the floor facing each other. Crowley lit the three candles with a fingertip, starting with the black, then the red, and lastly the white, and arranged them around the edge of the circle.

Aziraphale picked up the glass of salt water and, after allowing himself a faint smile, began to pour it in a slow stream over Crowley’s head.

“Lost ones, we call you from the aether. May you slake your thirst with this sinner’s tears,” Aziraphale recited. 

The salt stung Crowley’s eyes, but he did not make a move to wipe it away. The original spell had called for real tears. Crowley did not trust himself to cry on command, and Anathema had assured them that the symbolism would be enough- if the intention behind it was genuine.

He watched the salt water drip through his hair and tasted it on his lips, and thought of the ghost with the slashed wrists. He closed his eyes and spoke his part.

“Your tears are my tears, lost ones.”

The black candle guttered for a moment, then flared up with renewed strength.

Aziraphale put the empty glass aside, and picked up the silver bowl. He picked up the knife, and hesitated before passing it to Crowley. He didn’t speak, but the message on his face was clear: this was their last chance to turn back. Break the spell off here, and the worst Crowley would be was wet and embarrassed.

But that wouldn’t be the end of it. They both knew it.

Crowley took the knife from Aziraphale. It was made of iron, cold and very sharp, but it still stung when he sliced open both his palms. He held his hands open and let the blood drip into the silver bowl, while Aziraphale recited his next lines.

“Hungry ones, we call you to our hearth. May you sate your hunger with this sinner’s blood.”

The blood continued to flow as Crowley used his demonic power to prevent the wounds from healing, letting them drain out until the bowl was nearly full and his pulse was pounding dangerously loud in his ears. Another modification; the original spell had only called for a few drops of blood, but they had all doubted that that would be enough to satisfy a dining party of five-thousand.

At last, Crowley lowered his arms and used a tiny bit of magic to heal himself. It wouldn’t do for him to keel over from blood loss for this next bit.

“Your pain is my pain, hungry ones.”

The red candle went out, then reignited.

Aziraphale picked up the mug of holy water. He looked at Crowley, eyes now wide and solemn.

Crowley was grateful that Aziraphale wasn’t saying _Are you sure about this?_ out loud, for all that his eyes were shouting it. He took a deep breath and summoned his wings once more.

He folded the left wing in front of him, gripped three of the long primary feathers with his right hand, and yanked them out. It hurt, but it was going to be nothing compared to what came next, so he refused to acknowledge it. He wasn’t sure if Aziraphale was going to be able to go through with his part if Crowley started whingeing now.

He watched Aziraphale dip his fingers into the holy water and gritted his teeth.

“Do you want me to count to three, or…?”

Crowley shook his head. “Don’t tell me when you’re going to do it. Just do it.”

The angel squared his shoulders and then nodded, and Crowley closed his eyes, expecting blinding pain to come next. Instead, he felt Aziraphale’s free hand reach out and take his, giving it a comforting squeeze.

“I am so sorry,” Aziraphale whispered, and then the pain started.

The angel’s fingers, soaked in holy water, clamped down on the spot from which Crowley had pulled his own feathers. The pain was instant and huge, and Crowley bit down on the scream that was threatening to tear itself from his throat, ground his teeth so hard his jaw began to ache. He could feel the wing involuntarily struggling to pull away and held it still with his free hand, the hand that wasn’t holding onto Aziraphale’s, white-knuckled and shaking. He saw Aziraphale’s eyes, strong but so, so sad, as he bore down with his fingers, and then Crowley felt something give, felt the angel’s fingers pass _through_ his flesh, the nerves firing off bright red warnings as they died, and that was it, now he was going to scream-

The pain stopped as quickly as it had begun. Aziraphale let go of his wing, wiping his hand furiously on his trousers, and then rocked back on his heels to observe his handiwork, looking faintly green as he did.

Crowley held the wing up in front of him to get a better look. A hole had been burned clean through the flesh by the holy water, jagged and already ringed with white scar tissue. Impossible for the feathers he had removed to grow back.

Little shocked tremors moved through his wings and arms as he watched Aziraphale float the three feathers upon the blood in its silver bowl.

“Generous ones,” the angel recited, his voice shaking a bit, “we bid you accept our gift. May you be honored by this sinner’s gift of his own body.”

Crowley suddenly wanted nothing more than to lie down and sleep for the rest of this century, but they weren’t even close to finished.

“Your loss is my loss, generous ones,” he rasped.

The white candle guttered, went completely out, and then slowly crept back to life. 

They watched it happen with twin looks of grim satisfaction. The first part of the ritual was complete, and Crowley’s offerings had been recognized as a legitimate act of penance.

They still had to persuade the spirits to accept it.

Aziraphale wet his fingers in the holy water again (and it now felt wrong to think of it as holy, how could something be holy if he could use it to hurt his love so badly, he’d give anything to erase the memory of the panicked look in Crowley’s eyes and the way his wing had struggled in Aziraphale’s grip) and began drawing symbols upon his own forehead, throat and wrists. Symbols of invitation, and of confinement. He allowed himself a small miracle to ensure his hands would not shake- there was no room for error in the way these runes were sketched.

“Come forth,” he intoned once his work was finished. “Come forth that we may know you, honored guests.”

A cold breeze swirled within the confines of the circle, and suddenly Aziraphale was sharing his head with five-thousand people.

Once, sometime in the 1990’s, Aziraphale had agreed to meet Crowley at a rock-and-roll concert the demon had had some hand in putting together. They’d stood on a balcony crowded with record executives, screaming at each other to be heard over the mind-mangling noises produced by the band ( _Haven_ , or something like that?). Aziraphale had watched the crowd, most of them barely more than children, climbing over each other, shoving, shrieking, sometimes seeming to tear at each other’s clothes and hair to get closer to the sunglasses-wearing false idols on the stage, and remembered thinking that Crowley had outdone himself this time.

The noise in Aziraphale’s head reminded him of that crowd. Chaotic, howling, desperate, focused on a singular goal but willing to rip each other to pieces to get to it. The runes he’d sketched had been specific in their function; the spirits could see through his eyes and speak through his voice, but they should not be able to take control of his body. He could feel them trying anyway, could feel his leaden limbs tingle as they fought to move, but the spell held, and Aziraphale remained seated on the floor.

“Crowley,” he heard himself say in five-thousand strange voices. “We’re here.”

Crowley’s eyes went wide at the sound of all those voices coming from Aziraphale’s mouth, but he steadied himself and recited his lines.

“I offer this gift of my penance. I bid you accept it, and your pain be eased.”

Aziraphale, acting of his own volition, placed his hands around the silver bowl.

“Will you accept?”

How strange it was to hear Crowley speak this way, with no trace of his voice’s usual mischievousness lilt. 

Aziraphale could hear the voices inside of him swirling in debate, drowning each other out, shouting each other down, until a consensus was released. It did not come gently; voices rose in protest and were crushed beneath the weight of the decision, and Aziraphale felt a brush of apprehension up his spine. The spell was not built to accommodate this many influences.

“We will feed,” he heard himself say. “And we will know your contrition, Crowley.”

Crowley nodded in assent, and the contents of the bowl burst into flames.

The blood and feathers crackled and hissed, emitting thick, black smoke that floated around their heads but stayed in the confines of the circle. Aziraphale blinked stinging tears out of his eyes and watched Crowley, beautiful and proud as the smoke wrapped around him.

_Almost through, my love, we’ve almost done it._

“Take our hands,” the voices said. “Let us know you, and settle our debts.”

The contents of the bowl had burned into a thick black crust. Crowley took Aziraphale’s hands. With the touch, the spirits should be able to sense his honest contrition, and be soothed.

Aziraphale looked down at their linked hands, felt the trust and compassion in Crowley’s touch.

Then something _changed_.

A surge of power, something that set the voices in his head to fresh peaks of violent noise, gleeful, hysterical _laughter_.

Against his will, Aziraphale felt his hands close over Crowley’s wrists like manacles. Aziraphale tried to let go, tried to speak, but he felt that surge of power send him reeling again, and he could only watch through horrified, stolen eyes as the look on Crowley’s face changed from trust to fear.

“You think a few feathers is enough?” the spirits growled from Aziraphale’s throat.

Crowley tried to pull away, and Aziraphale watched helplessly as his nails dug in and left bloody half-moons on Crowley’s forearms.

“You think _anything_ could be enough?” they roared.

His hands released Crowley’s wrists and for a wild moment Aziraphale thought he had managed to wrest back control over his body, but then his left hand was striking out and grabbing Crowley by the throat, and the other one was reaching, searching for something…

Closing on the knife.

Aziraphale struggled against the forces moving his hand, momentarily gained control of the fingers and saw them spasm wildly before losing it again, and watched as the knife in his hand made a slow, shaking path toward Crowley’s eye.

“We’re here, Crowley, and you’re going to know us. You’re going to know us _very well._ ”


	13. "And the tears they start to fall when it all comes down."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Violence! Feels! And is that a setup for Act III I see on the horizon?

In the sleepless days and nights of planning they had done for this ritual, Crowley and Aziraphale had laid out a number of contingency plans.

In the event the penance was deemed illegitimate. In the event the containment circle didn’t hold. In the event of a sudden earthquake, radio interference, or Crowley being unable to say his lines without smirking. 

And yes, they’d planned for the possibility of the spirits gaining physical control over Aziraphale. It had been considered a modest risk at most. There was a real if complex difference between channeling and full-on bodily possession, and no precedent had ever been set for a human to be able to possess an angel or a demon. Even if it did, there was no way human spirits, even a great number of them, possessed the power to eject a Principality like Aziraphale from his own body. There’d been equations. Aziraphale had made a _chart_ , for heaven’s sake.

At the very, very worst, Aziraphale had calculated, there might be a few brief moments where Crowley would have to fight him off while Aziraphale wrested back control. It should have been more than manageable.

This did _not_ feel manageable. Aziraphale’s strangling grip was making Crowley’s vision go black around the edges, and there was a furious, implacable strength in the arm that held the knife. Crowley managed to latch on with both hands to keep the blade a few inches away from his face, but that left him with no way to stop Aziraphale from throttling him, and he felt his hold starting to weaken as he ran out of air.

Locked together like this, Crowley could feel Aziraphale’s hands twitching, and he had a horrible mental image of the angel trapped inside his own head, desperately trying to regain control while the ghosts used his body to slice Crowley into ribbons. Rage shot through him then, red and pulsing, because maybe the ghosts were right and Crowley deserved this, but Aziraphale sure as hell didn’t. 

_Loving you makes him worse._

Crowley kicked out with his legs, managed to break Aziraphale’s grip on his neck and tried to scramble to his feet. If he could make it out of the circle, the spirits shouldn’t be able to chase him. They’d be contained inside, and perhaps Aziraphale would be as well, but at least Crowley would be able to figure something out, some way to save him…

_What are you going to do? What can you possibly do without him to help you?_

He’d risen to one knee when Aziraphale lunged at him, stabbing at Crowley’s face once more, and Crowley reached up to grab Aziraphale’s wrist and lost his balance. He ended up sprawled on his back with Aziraphale on top of him, the two of them grappling for control over the knife while five-thousand souls glared insanely at him through his lover’s eyes.

Aziraphale was stronger than him. Intellectually Crowley had always known that, but it was easy to forget because Aziraphale had always been so gentle, with him, with everyone. That strength, turned to violence, was horrifying enough, but even more so was the knowledge that Crowley was not going to be able to fight back without injuring the body the spirits had stolen. Crowley had strength of his own, and if he used it he could draw blood, break bones, but he’d be doing those things _to Aziraphale_ , and no, that was not going to happen, there was _no way_ that was how this was meant to go…

_This is all YOUR FAULT._

The knife was now a hair’s breadth from Crowley’s eye once more, he could see it in looming in his peripheral vision, and desperately he thrashed with all his strength. His wings were still out, had been pinned beneath him when he’d been shoved onto his back, but one managed to wriggle free and buffeted wildly about Aziraphale’s head and shoulders, a panicked, reflexive movement. The black feathers raked across Aziraphale’s eyes and Crowley seized the chance, adjusted his grip and succeeded in getting his fingers on the knife’s hilt. There was a frantic scrabbling of nails and bone, but in the end Crowley’s long fingers managed to pry Aziraphale’s fist apart, get a grip on the knife-

-And fling it away, over his head behind him. He heard it clatter and slide on the wooden floor, out of the circle.

Aziraphale’s face twisted into a snarl of frustration as the spirits controlling him realized what had happened. Crowley heaved himself upward, tumbling the angel’s body off of him and rolling to his hands and knees. If he could just make it out, just be able to stop fighting for a moment and _think_ , he could stop this. He had to.

His thoughts were snapped off by two savage kicks to his ribs. The blows sent him reeling, whited out all sensation for a moment, until the next blow came down on his spine, right between his wings, and he sagged back onto the floor. Aziraphale’s weight was on him again, driving him onto his belly, and the angel’s hands were on his wings, grabbing fistfuls of his feathers and twisting mercilessly.

“It’s fine,” the spirits’ voices hissed at him from above. “We can use our bare hands.”

Another flash of pain as Crowley’s head was yanked up by the hair, the voices now wet and warm right by his ear.

“We can do it anyway you like, Crowley.”

“Aziraphale,” Crowley gasped. “Angel, _please_.”

“Your angel can’t save you now.” The fingers in his feathers and his hair had grown gentle, possessive. “You’re a demon. You can take it. Just stop struggling, and we’ll all be back where we belong soon.”

“Aziraphale, just…”

“Shhhhh.”

“Just, go somewhere else, alright? If you can. Or if, I don’t know if you have eyes where you are, but if you can close them just close them. Pretend this isn’t happening.”

Familiar hands ground the delicate bones of his wings together and Crowley sobbed with pain, but he kept talking, if only because the spirits didn’t seem to want him to. “Whatever they do to me…they’re, they’re right, I can take it, and if I… _fuck_ , whatever happens _I’ll find you_ , I promise…even if I end up back in Hell they can’t hold me forever, they won’t, I’ll come back to you, just get away from here if you can, _please_ …”

He could still feel strange jolts moving through Aziraphale’s hands, spasms that must mean he was still in there, still trying to take control. Of course he was. Crowley knew Aziraphale wasn’t going to give up on him, even if Crowley wished he would. 

From his prone position, Crowley’s line of sight was chair legs, the bottoms of bookshelves, the scattered remains of the little altar they’d created, God, they’d been so _stupid_ to think this would work, trying to pay back six-thousand years of pain and chaos with a few candles, a few symbols, a few drops of…

…holy water…

Crowley’s eyes fell on the white-winged mug, miraculously untouched during their scuffle. The spirits’ voices had receded to a whisper, mock-soothing, promising he would understand why he deserved this.

He shot out one arm, reaching for the mug and falling hopelessly short. The angel’s eyes followed his grasping fingers and Crowley heard a slow, rolling laugh.

“No easy way out for you, Crowley. But we like your thinking.”

He saw Aziraphale’s hand reach out and seize the mug of holy water, followed it with his eyes until it disappeared from his line of sight.

“It was a good start, what you made the angel do to your wing. Let’s see if we can expand on that.”

Another spasm, a full-body jolt this time and Crowley dared to hope that it was Aziraphale abandoning this form for good, winging off somewhere where he wouldn’t have to see this.

There was pain like tiny, white-hot needles as a few stray drops hit his feathers. Crowley gritted his teeth and waited…

No pain. Instead, Crowley heard a strangled cry of rage and then the weight on his back was gone. Infernal survival instinct, sharpened by the astringent reek of holy water in the air, drove Crowley to his feet in a rush. He whirled around, fangs bared and fists raised, ready to fight.

Aziraphale was doubled over, the mug clutched in his hand, and Crowley watched as the porcelain dropped from the angel’s fingers and shattered on the floor. 

Empty.

The angel’s head was wrenched upward, eyes blazing blue fire, and then his voice, strained with effort but _Aziraphale’s voice_ , was growling, “Get out of the circle.”

“Not without you.”

“Crowley, pardon my language, but get the _fuck_ out of the circle,” Aziraphale snapped. Another spasm rocked through him and Crowley understood, Aziraphale wasn’t fighting to take control over his body anymore, he was fighting to keep the spirits _contained_.

Crowley backed up and stepped carefully over the salt runes on the floor. As soon as he was over the circle’s edge, the inside of it exploded into stinging blue-white light.

At first all Crowley could make out was frenzied motion, whipping past the invisible barrier at cyclone speeds. Then a figure at the center began to form, through the light, no, it _was_ the light. Aziraphale, in his heavenly form, wings spread and covered in piercing, furious eyes, and he was shouting in a voice that sliced through Crowley’s mind like the sound of a finger being dragged along a wineglass, something he felt in the back of his teeth, and the Enochian words the angel was shouting were those of holy, towering _rage_.

“HOW…. _DARE_ YOU.”

Crowley could see the spirits now, banished from Aziraphale’s body and trapped inside the circle. He saw ghostly faces raised in screams and hands scrabbling at the barrier, trying in vain to escape the angel’s divine wrath.

Aziraphale’s voice rang and boomed, drawing power from the aether, so that the evil forces in this circle might be banished from this plane forevermore. The spirits shrieked in fear and protest, and Crowley thought he heard his own name among those cries, begging him to intercede, this was all happening because of him…

Crowley stared unblinking into the gorgeous, terrible light and said nothing.

“ _BEGONE_.”

The circle flared up into a small supernova in the dark confines of the bookshop, leaving a neon afterimage behind Crowley’s eyes.

Then the light slowly faded, revealing Aziraphale standing in the circle alone. Back in his normal human form save for his wings, which were still spread up over his shoulders, challenging any unseen threats to come forth.

They stared at one another a moment, breathing hard, and then Aziraphale’s wings and shoulders sagged and his knees buckled. Crowley darted forward to catch him around the waist and found he was barely able to stand himself. He steered the both of them toward the couch, kicking aside stray feathers and occult ephemera as they went, before collapsing back into the cushions with his angel wrapped up in his arms.

For a while all they could do was lay together in an awkward tangle of limbs, Aziraphale’s head resting on Crowley’s chest, trying to remember how to breathe. It was Aziraphale who spoke first, his voice hoarse with the misuse it had been put through.

“That was a good idea. With the holy water.”

“Hmm?” Crowley was barely listening, was watching the patterns on the ceiling swim and drip in glorious, random swirls.

“Drawing my- well, their- attention to it. So I could drink it.” Aziraphale craned his neck to look up at Crowley. “I don’t think they were expecting that. I was able to catch them off guard. Good idea.”

Crowley looked into Aziraphale’s eyes, trusting, self-assured. Angel eyes, willing to see the good in everyone, even in a demon like himself. 

“Yeah, yeah it was, wasn’t it? Good thing I…thought of that…”

He felt tears sliding out of his own eyes and buried his face against the couch cushion, trying to will them away before Aziraphale could see them and understand what his plan with the holy water had been.

“Oh, _sweetheart_.”

Not fast enough, it would seem.

There was movement, then, the shifting of their bodies as Aziraphale untangled himself so he could embrace Crowley properly. He threw his arms around the demon, wings and all, and Crowley put his head on Aziraphale’s shoulder and did _not_ cry, he just needed to rest his head a moment, and if he had to use a small miracle to make sure Aziraphale’s shirt was dry when he pulled away, well, good luck proving it.

Aziraphale held him and murmured soft things and waited.

“H-h-how,” Crowley started in a thick, choked voice. He swallowed and tried again. “Where did you s-s-send them?”

“I don’t know,” Aziraphale said softly. “I’m not so sure I sent them anywhere. I think they might just be…gone.”

Crowley looked up, eyes wary. “Are you supposed to do that? Are supposed to be _able_ to do that?”

“I don’t know.” Aziraphale kissed him. “I don’t care,” he said, realizing it as the words formed on his lips. “I don’t care, I don’t, Crowley, my love, they were going to-“ 

He was speaking haltingly now, the words interrupted with frantic kisses to Crowley’s lips, his cheeks, his eyelids.

“I don’t care, I don’t care, come here, my love, come here _right now_ -“

Then Crowley was kissing him back, hungry, tasting like salt and electricity, hands everywhere at once.

“-you sssaved me-“

“-always, my love, I will _always_ -“

Pulling at each other’s clothes, and Aziraphale thought he might have just miracled them away if he had the strength, but instead he undid the buttons on Crowley’s shirt with shaking hands, burning with the need to feel the demon’s skin against his own.

Crowley grunted when Aziraphale’s hands grazed his ribs, and Aziraphale gasped as his attention was drawn to the angry purple bloom of bruises there, bruises that had been left by _him_.

“Crowley, oh stupid me, you’re _hurt_.”

“It’s fine.”

“It’s not, look at your ribs, and oh heavens, your _wings_. Just a minute, I don’t have the strength to heal you yet, but let me get-“

“No!” Crowley’s arms tightened around him, pulled them chest to chest, his chin digging into Aziraphale’s shoulder. “Don’t let go, don’t, just stay with me.”

Eventually Aziraphale was able to pry Crowley’s arms off him, “-not going anywhere, love, just let me have a look-“, was able to coax Crowley into stretching out on his back, but before he could take a good look Crowley was already healing himself. The bruises faded before Aziraphale’s eyes, sparing him the sight of what he’d done.

“Told you it was fine,” Crowley whispered, tracing a finger gently over Aziraphale’s cheekbone. 

“I still know it was there.”

“Doesn’t matter.” Crowley’s eyes were serene now, nearly glowing in the dim light of the bookshop. “Kiss me again, angel.”

Aziraphale obliged, again and again, hoping with every kiss and touch he could erase how it had felt for his hands to be used to hurt this amazing, sweet creature.

The memories didn’t go away, but they became easier to ignore, drowned out in a sea of sighs and whimpers and _yes_ and _love you_ and _don’t stop_.

And finally blissful silence.

At last they were lying still, wrapped up in each other’s wings. Crowley listened to the rise and fall of their mingled breath, the soft tick of a clock somewhere, the faint, ever-present rush of the city noise outside.

The sounds stayed what they were, traveled through his ears and mind and dissipated harmlessly, and Crowley let them lull him into a deep and perfect sleep.


	14. "Through these eyes I've looked the devil in the face, and I've seen God's holy grace."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW for verbal threats of sexual assault in this chapter.

Aziraphale didn’t sleep. He hardly ever slept, and never for more than a few hours at a time.

Still, there was much to be appreciated about beds, and the sharing of them. Soft pillows, the rhythmic hush of his lover’s breathing, the bone-deep warmth generated by lying skin-to-skin with another being; all good things, in Aziraphale’s opinion. So he usually never minded letting Crowley drift off in his arms while he just lay in meditation, until the demon woke up or until daytime duties called Aziraphale away.

This time, though, he was restless. Part of it was their location. The couch was not quite big enough for the two of them; Crowley’s left arm and wing were dangling over the edge as the demon snored with his head on Aziraphale’s chest. His own wings Aziraphale had sent back to their ethereal plane when he’d rolled onto his back, but that did nothing about the crick in his neck from lying against the arm of the couch. 

But more than physical discomfort it was Aziraphale’s thoughts that were keeping him from relaxing. Thoughts of what he’d done, and what would follow.

It had felt _so good_ to hear the ghosts pleading for mercy.

When the interlopers in Aziraphale’s head had seen Crowley reach for the holy water and they’d realized what it was, the angel’s mind had filled with shrieks of almost childlike glee. He’d watched his own hand pick up the mug while his mind was assaulted with the spirits’ suggestions of what they could do to Crowley with this new tool. What parts of him they should burn off first. It had been delight that Aziraphale had heard, or at best probing curiosity. No thought of forgiveness or penance or even vengeance, just a sadistic impulse to make another being suffer because pain was the only language they knew.

Aziraphale’s rage had surged, crested, and he’d gathered it close and waited for his chance. Even a millisecond of control at the right time could make all the difference. The mug had been in his hand and he could feel the spirits tensing the muscles of his arm, anticipating that Aziraphale was going to try to throw the mug away or pour it out. Raising it to his lips had been an unexpected move, something they weren’t prepared for, and by the time they’d rallied their control again he’d already tipped the contents down his throat.

He’d only meant to remove the holy water from the equation, the way Crowley had done with the knife by throwing it out of the circle. He’d swallowed it and the spirits had wailed anew, not in pain or fear but disappointment. 

It was going to be fun for them, and Aziraphale had ruined it.

What followed had been a level of fury and disgust that Aziraphale honestly had not thought himself capable of. He’d felt it grow and felt the tide of voices in him turn as panic rippled through them, and suddenly they were desperate to _get out_ , they’d burst through to find themselves trapped within the circle and Aziraphale had felt such _joy._

He didn’t remember exactly what he’d said to them as they whirled about him. He remembered what he thought, though, could still hear the crystalline echo of it.

_I hope this hurts, you vile, damnable pests. I truly hope it does._

No, Aziraphale was not going to be able to sleep, not with those words ringing in his head.

He eased himself out from underneath Crowley as gently as he could. The demon slumbered on, curling a little more into himself at the sudden absence of Aziraphale’s warmth. Smiling, the angel conjured up a blanket and let it drape over him, then turned about to survey the mess they’d made of the shop with a short, almost satisfied sigh.

First, he dressed. His clothes smelled vaguely of smoke and sweat, and he promised them a proper dry-cleaning later on and guiltily magicked them back to normal. Then he set about to straightening stacks of books and sweeping up the shattered bits of glass and porcelain on the floor. Crowley’s clothes he folded neatly and left on the end of the couch, knowing full well the demon would likely just miracle himself a fresh set upon waking but not quite able to help himself.

He spent a few minutes searching around upstairs, and came back down with a pair of Crowley’s sunglasses, which he left folded up on top of his clothes.

While he did all these things, he listened. For the phone to ring, or a knock to come at the door, or just the whisper of a letter being dropped on his front step. In one form or another, it would come. Aziraphale had no doubt that Heaven planned to have their say, every last word of it, for what had happened. Even if Aziraphale himself wasn’t sure what it precisely was.

He wrote three separate notes, all of them for Crowley, detailing what he felt were the three most likely scenarios to have played out should he wake up to find the angel gone. They all requested that Crowley not try to come after him. They all ended with him promising to be back soon.

He made tea, drank it, made coffee, tasted it, threw it out, reorganized the already impeccably arranged bookshelves, took care of various correspondences he’d been putting off, and was just considering waking Crowley up for the distraction if nothing else when a knock finally sounded on the bookshop window.

Aziraphale sighed, straightened his tie, took one last lingering glance at Crowley and went to meet his fate.

Obscured as they were by the signs in the window, all Aziraphale could observe of the figure outside was a narrow, straight-backed stature and white-blond curls falling past the shoulders. His brows knit in curiosity. Not Gabriel then, or Michael, or any of the usual Heavenly authorities sent to check up on him. Had they sent someone new?

And didn’t something feel wrong about the figure on the other side of the glass? Something unusually dark, and heavy?

Aziraphale suddenly found himself very badly not wanting to open the door. He could see himself turning on his heel, waking Crowley up and taking him upstairs, taking him to Paris, to Alpha Centauri, anywhere but where his feet were still reluctantly taking him…

He opened the door, and he looked up. He had to. She was probably Crowley’s height, his visitor, but seemed taller because this was a creature who had never slouched or slunk or sauntered in all of her existence. Her face was as regal as her bearing; strong straight nose, sculpted lips, silver eyes sparking under high, arched brows. 

She smiled at Aziraphale with the whitest, straightest set of teeth he’d ever seen, and Aziraphale thought about simply slamming the door in her face. It wouldn’t do a thing to stop her, of course, but it might provide a fleeting moment of satisfaction that he had stood up to her before she turned the shop into a smoking hole in the ground. 

The truth was that Aziraphale had always been a bit afraid of Lucifer, even before she had Fallen.

She’d been the proudest, fiercest, most passionate of all the Heavenly Host when Aziraphale had known her. He had not know her well; Aziraphale did not think anyone had, save the Almighty. But her conviction had drawn enough angels to her to start a rebellion, and when Aziraphale had watched her plummet from Heaven he had done so with the dueling thoughts that this could not possibly be happening, and that it really could not have been any other way.

She was wearing a silver dress-suit, the type that lawyers and politicians from wealthy but charmless districts wore, and she carried a folded up piece of paper in her hand, faintly charred at the edges.

“Aziraphale,” she cooed in a voice like honey dripping off of thorns, “It’s _so good_ to see you again.”

“Lucifer,” he answered coolly, trying to remember how it felt to face her down in her aspect of the Beast, flaming sword in hand. It had been easier, when she’d been all flames and horns and the stench of sulfur. Now she was wearing perfume, something undoubtedly called Winter’s Morning or Starry Skies. It stung his nostrils. “You’re looking…queenly.”

“We adapt as our surroundings demand, you old fool.” She winked and pushed the paper into his hand, and then said, her voice taking on an abyssal echo, “I’m coming in now.”

And she was. There was no way Aziraphale could have stopped her.

The full unholy force of her hit him when she crossed the threshold. Aziraphale could feel reality grow soft at the edges, eager to bend to her will, could feel his own grip on what was true slip from his grasp. The Devil was in his bookshop, and really, what was the point in fighting her, easier just to submit, after all, she had a plan, she had a _better_ plan than God, and Lucifer was a generous queen and would actually _tell_ her followers her plan instead of leave them scrabbling and guessing, everyone had their role to play and right now Aziraphale’s role was to _stand aside_ and _shut up_ -

She was strolling through the stacks, touching things like she owned them. She was heading toward the back. 

“Crowley!” he managed to shout, his voice strangled. “Crowley, you need to _run_ -“

Lucifer reached up a white hand, laden with iron rings, and caught Aziraphale’s words out of the air. He fancied he could actually see them puff out of existence before ever reaching Crowley. She smiled another bone-white smile and beckoned for Aziraphale to follow her.

When he caught up to her she was standing over the still-sleeping Crowley. There was a tense, unhappy cast to his features that had not been there when Aziraphale had last checked on him, which sharpened when she ran a hand lazily through his hair.

 _Get your hands off of him,_ were the words that Aziraphale was struggling to bring forth, and although he did not succeed she seemed to hear them anyway, smirked at him over her shoulder.

“I had to see it to believe it,” she said fondly, still stroking Crowley’s hair. “You managed to tame our clever little serpent.”

Crowley was starting to wake up. Aziraphale glimpsed the amber of his eyes and saw his shoulders tense, and then Lucifer’s hand cupped the side of his face and pushed him back down.

“Shh, shh, back to sleep now, there’s a dear.” Her voice was a salacious parody of soothing, and it made Aziraphale’s skin crawl. The hand on Crowley’s face had grown to look distinctly claw-like, not guiding his head back to the cushions but forcing it. His frightened eyes narrowed and fell closed once more, and his body sagged beneath the blanket he still wore wrapped around him. 

“Stop it,” Aziraphale heard himself grit out. Speaking was like trying to move a boulder with a teaspoon. The ghosts’ control over him had been nothing compared to this. That had felt like an involuntary bodily reaction, like a sneeze or a muscle spasm. This was like the world itself, physics and the tides and the turn of the seasons, had gotten together and decided it would be best if Aziraphale didn’t talk or move. Like the world might break apart if he did.

Still, he’d gotten those two words out. She heard them, and fixed him with a sly gaze.

“Oh, is the angel _jealous_?” She cocked her head. “It’s…not a bad look on you, actually.”

Crowley’s eyelids were twitching behind the cage of her sharp silver nails. Aziraphale worried, suddenly, about what her touch was doing to Crowley in the confines of his dreams, and he tried to step forward, but gravity considered the idea and said no.

“No, not bad at all,” Lucifer continued. “I think I’d like to see more of that. Perhaps I should let him wake up. Perhaps I should take him right here, in your bookshop, while you stay on that spot and watch. Should I do that?”

Aziraphale still couldn’t speak. He assumed that meant she didn’t really care about his answer.

“No?” She let Crowley go and stalked over to Aziraphale, tilted his face up with two iron fingers under his chin. “How about I wear _your_ form? That could be fun. Wake him up with those soft pink lips of yours. I’m sure he’d _love_ it. You could watch me make his pretty eyes roll back in his head and he’d never have to know it was really me. Hmm?”

She waited, and Aziraphale realized through his horror that he had his voice again. 

“No,” he whispered. “No, please don’t. Please leave him alone.”

“You _reek_ of each other, you know.” She was still holding Aziraphale still, her face a mere few inches from his. She rolled her tongue behind her teeth and he felt unpleasantly like he was being sampled, all his fear and love and anger. Tasted, and enjoyed.

She let him go. The ability to move came back in a heady rush and Aziraphale briefly considered searching for a weapon, but understood how foolish that idea was. She was still the Devil. And she still stood between him and Crowley.

“Look at me, getting distracted,” she sighed. “And you too, you besotted thing. You haven’t even read the letter I brought you.”

Aziraphale looked down at the singed paper, crumpled and forgotten in his hand.

“Well? I only came all the way from Hell to hand-deliver it, didn’t I? And I _hate_ coming topside in the winter.”

The words _Writ of Condemnation_ curled across the top of the letter in a font that Aziraphale recognized from Heaven’s official memos, and had always disliked.

Some of the letter was in the same type, and some was handwritten.

_This writ is to certify that angelic being_ Aziraphale, Principality _has been found to have committed the sin of_ blasphemy _for the following actions:_

Destruction of immortal souls.

_By the authority vested in the undersigned,_ Aziraphale, Principality _shall be removed from his/her/its position in Heaven and turned over to the stewardship of_ Lucifer, the Morningstar, Queen of Hell, First of the Fallen, Devourer of Traitors, etc _, until_ forever. 

_Signed,_

Gabriel, Archangel and Messenger of the Lord.

The archangel’s signature glowed upon the page, inked there with a distinct flourish that Aziraphale could not help but be offended by.

Aziraphale lowered the letter and looked back up at Lucifer, who was now standing with her arms folded and a half-hearted attempt at a sympathetic expression.

“I’ve been…cast out?” Aziraphale heard his own voice as if he were at the bottom of a deep well. “I’ve been cast out with a _form letter_?”

The queen of Hell nodded, her lips forming a trace of a pout. “We’re doing things a bit differently now,” she explained. “Which is why I’ve come up here to deliver the message personally. We want to make the transition as smooth as possible for you.”

“Transition.”

“Quite.” Lucifer had produced a silver handbag from somewhere, and was now digging around in it. “I’ve brought some literature for you to look at.”

“Literature.”

“Oh dear,” she tutted. “Perhaps some refreshments first, hmm? You look a bit peaked. And I don’t know about you, but I could _murder_ for a cappuccino.”

Somehow, that word cut through the numbing haze of shock in a way the others hadn’t. Aziraphale looked up.

“The shop hasn’t got-“

Lucifer waved a hand airily. “It does now.”

She took Aziraphale’s elbow and began to gently guide him back into the open area of the shop.

“Don’t worry,” she cooed. “Your customers will _adore_ it.”


	15. "I found myself again, but nearly lost my mind."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks again for everyone's sweet comments, it really means a lot.
> 
> And thanks for sticking with me through this mutating beast of a plot. I swear I have a destination in mind, but we're definitely taking a different route than I originally planned.

Crowley had never talked about Falling, and Aziraphale had never asked.

For all their shared intimacy and the trust that existed between them, it seemed too large and unwieldy a subject for them to ever dare discussing. They knew, or sensed, that Crowley’s tendency to make light of past trauma and Aziraphale’s tendency to intellectualize carried the risk of wounding one another deeply. Aziraphale had told himself that if Crowley ever wanted to talk about it, he would be happy to listen, but was always secretly relieved that the demon never brought it up.

In all the darkest times that Aziraphale had wondered, he had never pictured anything close to _this_.

He perched on the edge of one of the shop’s reading chairs, several glossy pamphlets open in his lap. Across from him, Lucifer fiddled with the espresso machine. It was a many-handled, black and chrome monstrosity, an unsightly growth that had suddenly sprung up near the antique till and now squatted there, spitting steam and malevolence. Lucifer toyed with some buttons and dials and the machine began to emit a grinding, piercing shriek. This seemed to satisfy her.

“As you’ll find,” she yelled over the noise, “our recruitment program has grown much more sophisticated since the First War. It’s all about creating a brand that people identify with, you see. Damnation isn’t a product, it’s a _lifestyle_ , and the angels that come over to our side do it because we offer them something they can’t get anywhere else.”

There were photographs in the brochures. Aziraphale peered closely at a picture of three demons on the shore of a blood-red lake, on sand that upon closer inspection looked more like broken glass. They were making an attempt to smile at the camera, their rictuses so forced that Aziraphale found himself checking the corners of their mouths for staples.

“Of course, the training program is still…” Lucifer smiled and licked her lips. “Rigorous. But I suspect you’ll do just fine.”

She sat down in a chair across from him, drawing something in the foam of her drink with a fingernail. 

Aziraphale looked at the pamphlet labeled _Actualizing Your Demonic Potential_. There were sections on Rebranding, on choosing a new form and name as well as some fashion Do’s & Don’ts. There was information about something called a Transitional Support Program, which promised “professional and discreet mental/emotional counseling”, although the accompanying pictures were just an assortment of whips and flails. There was also mention of a Mentorship Program, and it was here that Aziraphale began to suspect these brochures were not closely proofread, because the text under that heading was just the word “strangle” in forty-nine different languages.

“This isn’t right,” he said quietly.

The words were met by the menacing sounds of Lucifer uncrossing her legs and setting her coffee mug down on an end table.

“Oh?” The syllable had icicles dripping from it.

Aziraphale looked up reluctantly. It was hard to look at her, hard to _think_

“I can’t have Fallen,” he said, wishing his voice didn’t sound so brittle. “I would have known if I had. I would have felt it.”

“Why?” she asked. “You were expecting a grand production? To be brought before the Almighty in view of all the Heavenly Host and cast down in flames?”

“Well…yes.”

She sighed impatiently. “I told you, we’re doing things differently now. All of us in management, both Above and Below. And frankly, Aziraphale, you weren’t worth a fireworks display. You’ve been falling for millennia, after all. This is really more the landing than the plunge.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Really? Hedonistic…insubordinate…possessive…vengeful…do any of these qualities sound particularly _angelic_ to you? All those years on earth, indulging in human pleasures when Heaven’s grace should have been enough? To say nothing of _fucking_ a _demon_. I mean really, Aziraphale, how can this possibly come as a surprise to you? Heaven’s been waiting for an excuse to make it official for centuries. The fact that you’re the last to know just proves how far you’ve really gone astray.”

“But-“

“There’s lots of ways to Fall, you fool. You’d know that if you’d ever bothered to ask Crowley about it. I suspect you never did because you were too arrogant to think it could ever happen to you.”

“There has to be more to it than this!”

The Devil laughed, tossing her platinum curls and showing all her teeth. “Oh, _do_ go on, since you’re such an expert. Tell _Lucifer_ what Falling is supposed to feel like.”

“I…I still love Her.” It was so hard to speak. “I can still feel Her love. For me. For _everyone_. Wouldn’t that be gone…if I was…?”

The air around him was too thick to breathe. Lucifer had leaned forward, placed a leaden hand on his knee. When she spoke, her voice had changed to something throbbingly low and jagged, like hearing a rock speak.

“I… _still_ …love Her,” Lucifer growled. “I loved Her every second that I Fell…and when I came to rest upon the blighted fields of Hell I could feel that She still loved me. It _never_ goes away.”

The hand on Aziraphale’s knee had grown sharper; he could feel claws pricking through the fabric of his trousers. She yawned in his face, her jaw dropping grotesquely low, and now she was speaking through a mouthful of dripping fangs.

“What do you think Hell _is_ , little angel?” She moved closer. “It’s _my_ realm, created in _my_ image. All pain in Hell is _my_ pain, every torture a tiny fraction of my own suffering. Damnation would be _nothing_ if I could not feel love.”

The air shimmered, and suddenly she was back in her original form, coolly assessing him from her throne once more.

“Any other theories?” she asked, picking up her cup.

Aziraphale was trembling, faintly. He couldn’t speak anymore.

“Right,” she said. “That actually sets this next bit up quite nicely.”

She raised a hand and snapped her fingers.

——

One moment Crowley was lost in the rolling black sea of his dreams, adrift and at rest, if not necessarily at peace.

The next moment he was snapped to sputtering, choking wakefulness. He found himself seated in the front room of the bookshop, clothed and wingless, fully-informed of what had transpired while he was asleep. It was _nauseating_.

“Oh, _come on_ ,” he gasped, pitching forward to put his head between his knees. “I was _ten feet away_ , for Heaven’s sake! You could have just woken me up!”

Lucifer clucked her tongue dismissively. “My time is very valuable, Crowley.”

He straightened up to look at her, and bit back an involuntary hiss.

The Devil could take almost any form that she (or he, or they) wanted, of course, and she had as many aspects as she had names. Crowley had grown to associate each one with its own type of unpleasantness, but he had a particular dislike for the Morningstar.

It was the form she favored for disciplinary hearings, for one thing.

He risked a glance at Aziraphale. The angel was curled back into a reading chair, looking small and grey-faced and defeated. It made Crowley’s chest ache to see him like that, and he badly wanted to reach out and take his lover’s hand, but he forced himself to hold still and keep his eyes on Lucifer.

He knew the conversation they had had. It lay smoldering in Crowley’s mind; Lucifer’s histrionics, Aziraphale’s doubt and pain.

He thought of pieces on an ineffable chessboard, moving according to rules he could not conceive.

“Well?” He sunk into his usual languid posture, still watching Lucifer closely. “Get on with it, then.”

She smiled. “Aziraphale has Fallen, as you know. Heaven has transferred authority over him to me.” She passed Crowley the Writ of Condemnation. He took it, scanned it even though he already knew what it said. “And while I’ve done my best to reassure him, taken time out of my busy schedule and all to have this meeting, I still sense… _resistance_ , here.” She gestured toward Aziraphale. “Ingratitude. You’re not getting off on the best foot, if I may be blunt with you, Aziraphale.”

“Well, he needs a bit of time, doesn’t he?” Crowley cut in before Aziraphale could respond to that. “Took me a while to learn all the steps too, I’m sure you remember. And look how I turned out.”

Her lips quirked. “As a traitor?”

Crowley shrugged noncommittally. “Fun while it lasted though, yeah?” He winked. It was hidden by the sunglasses, but he knew she’d be able to sense it anyway. There was always more to a proper wink than just the movement of the eye.

“It was, at that.” She rose and stalked a circle around the two of them. Crowley felt her pause behind him, then felt her nails delicately tracing up the line of his neck, stopping at the tattoo by his ear. He set his jaw, ground his teeth inside his skull and _did not flinch._

“That’s why I’m prepared to offer you a deal,” she finished, taking her hand away. Crowley refused to allow any sense of relief to pervade his posture as she walked back around to face them.

“Come back to me, Crowley,” she said. “Back where you belong. Return with me to Hell, and I’ll leave Aziraphale here on earth. It won’t undo his Falling, of course, but he can stay up here. No need for him to go through the training program, or pick a new form, or even perform any services for us. He can just do what he’s been doing anyway, without any of the guilt about Heaven finding out. You can see how generous that would be on my part.”

Aziraphale sat up, looking frantically between her and Crowley. “No,” he said, “no, you can’t, you can’t ask him to-“

“You’re done talking.” Lucifer raised a hand, and Aziraphale fell silent. “This is up to Crowley. Don’t worry angel, we both know he loves you. Surely he’d be willing to sacrifice himself to protect you?”

Aziraphale shook his head miserably, his voice locked away.

“What’s it going to be, Crowley?” Lucifer sneered. “Come back to Hell, or send your angel boyfriend in your place?”

Crowley looked up at her, remembering all the times he’d looked into those slitted silver eyes and said _Please no_ , said _I’m sorry_ , said _Mercy_ , and had it not matter in the slightest.

He looked down at the Writ of Condemnation in his hand, the archangel’s gaudy signature glowing faintly on the parchment.

“Do you think,” he said slowly, “I could maybe get a copy of this? I’d love to be able to frame it for my flat.”

Lucifer blinked. “I beg your pardon?”

“Well, it’s a lifetime achievement, isn’t it?” Crowley drawled. “Six-thousand years of work I put in, bagging this one.“ He jerked a thumb at Aziraphale. “I think I deserve something to remember it by.”

She scoffed. “You really expect me to believe that you were trying to make him Fall, Crowley? Turning yourself into his little pet was all part of your diabolical plan?” 

“It’s called _deep cover_ , Lucifer. Watch a film sometime, honestly.” Crowley turned to Aziraphale, who was looking the shade of pale that usually preceded sudden unconsciousness in humans. Crowley hoped the angel’s constitution could hold up for at least a little longer. “Now, Aziraphale, I understand there may be some hard feelings, but I hope we can still be friends after you’ve completed your training. I can keep the shop going in your absence, if you want. Looks like you’ve already made some improvements.” He nodded at the coffee machine.

Lucifer took a menacing step toward the angel. “You’re certain?” she asked Crowley. “You’ll let me take him to Hell instead of you?”

“Really not that hard a bargain, Your Majesty.” Crowley leaned back in his chair, stretched his legs out and folded his arms behind his head. “No shame in it, I know it’s been a while since you made some old-fashioned deals yourself. I won’t tell.”

Lucifer’s hand gently, almost hesitantly, reached out and grasped Aziraphale’s throat. She squeezed and looked back at Crowley. “This is really your choice?”

Crowley nodded. He began to whistle the guitar solo from “Bohemian Rhapsody.”

There was a deep rumbling sound like rocks falling, a light that grew to fill the shop and hide Lucifer and Aziraphale from Crowley’s view, a sound like a thousand crystal glasses shattering…

And the Devil was gone. Aziraphale remained in the reading chair, eyes wide and stricken.

“C-crowley?” he gasped. “What did you _do_?”

Crowley gave him his most serpentine of smiles, and reached out to take the angel’s hand. He raised it to his lips and planted a feather-light kiss along his knuckles.

“Angel,” he whispered. “My love. Can’t you see? We’ve got ‘em.”

——

While Aziraphale sat and tried to pick up the pieces of his thoroughly shattered perspective, Crowley investigated the espresso machine.

“Bollocks, she really stuck that in there,” he muttered, rapping his knuckles along the side. “Magicking that away’s like to take half the biography section with it.”

“Crowley, _what just happened?_ ”

“Hmm? Well, that’s obvious isn’t it?” Crowley prowled around the machine, stroking the knobs and mirrored surfaces threateningly. “She said she was going to drag you down to Hell with her…and then didn’t. What does that tell you?”

With Lucifer gone, Aziraphale found his thoughts once again moving with their usual speed and elasticity. It was like coming up from underwater.

“She…she couldn’t do it?”

“Spot on.” Crowley flipped a switch and listened to the mechanical grinding that ensued. “She couldn’t force you to come to Hell with her, and _I don’t think she can force me either_.”

“How do you figure?”

“Think about it.” Crowley was now wrenching at a lever with a good deal more force than Aziraphale suspected the manufacturer recommended. “All the stuff they’ve been doing-“ there was a metallic _snap_ “-it’s all been trying to make me _choose_ to go to Hell. They want me to come back, but they keep stopping just short of forcing me. Aziraphale. The _Devil herself_ came up here, not to take me away with her, but to _try to trick me_ into going of my own free will.”

“So…so all that back there, with you trying to make me Fall and all, that was just, what is it, calling her, y’know-“

“ _Bluff_ , Aziraphale, come on, poker’s been around for two-hundred years.”

“Crowley!” Aziraphale leapt to his feet, scattering pamphlets to the ground. “What if you’d been _wrong_?”

Crowley raised and lowered one shoulder. “Wasn’t, though.” He took off his sunglasses and looked Aziraphale in the eyes. “I don’t believe for a second that you’ve Fallen, love. I’m not sure what Heaven’s playing at, but the idea that you’re anything but an angel…” He shook his head. “Rubbish. I think Heaven wants you to _think_ you’ve Fallen, and I think Hell wants me to think there’s no escaping from them, but as for what’s really going on…” He trailed off as he went to fiddle with another knob.

Aziraphale picked up the Writ of Condemnation from where it had been discarded on the floor. He looked at the hastily filled-in sections, at Gabriel’s ostentatious signature, at the words “Destruction of immortal souls.”

“I think _this_ is real,” he said, holding up the Writ. “I recognize the signature. And…I think I may actually have destroyed them. The spirits that were hurting you.”

“Yes, and trust me, we’ll get to the bottom of that,” Crowley muttered. “But first, come here and try this.”

“Crowley, do stop tinkering with that thing. I can barely stand to look at it.” Aziraphale glanced sidelong at the espresso machine as if it might reach out and bite him. “Have you seen those modern bookshops that serve coffee? People stay in them _all day_. They have signs asking people not to take books into the _washrooms_ , I mean _really_ -“

“Just press this button.” Crowley tapped his finger on the button in question, adorned with an outline of a steaming cup.

Aziraphale pushed it, then hissed in pain as an electric shock zapped his hand.

“What are you trying to do?” he snapped, sucking on his stinging finger. 

“That!” Crowley grinned. “Should keep people from getting too comfortable, yeah?”

“Seems a bit cruel.”

“Here.” Crowley snapped his fingers, and then there was a sign dangling from the machine on a thin chain, reading _Out of Order. Please do not touch._ “Now only the rule breakers will get shocked.”

Aziraphale looked at Crowley, at his proud, wicked smile, and couldn’t believe how happy he suddenly felt. It had only been a few months since Crowley had taken to spending most of his time in snake form, but only now did Aziraphale understand how painful that time had been for him, how badly he’d missed his companion in mischief and indulgence.

He felt a wicked smile of his own creeping over his face.

“So what happens now?”

Crowley looked at his watch. “First thing is I’m taking you to lunch. I think I owe you quite a few, after all you’ve done for me. And then…”

He took the Writ of Condemnation from Aziraphale and held it up between them. The document burst into flames, curling and blackening in Crowley’s hand, until it was nothing but ash.

“We’re going Upstairs. Heaven has some explaining to do.”


	16. "Why does love always have to hurt?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The day may come where I don't end every chapter on a cliffhanger, but it is not this day.

They found themselves at a dim sum cafe a few blocks from the bookshop. There was the usual mid-morning queue outside, but Aziraphale watched Crowley saunter up to the hostess stand, and after a short whispered exchange they were guided to a secluded table in the back. The angel worried a bit about what methods Crowley had used to obtain such preferential treatment, but took the speed and cheerfulness of the service they received as a sign it had been nothing too nefarious.

While Aziraphale tucked into an assortment of steamed dumplings, washed down with strong, smoky tea, Crowley made short work of a small regiment of Singapore Slings. Each brightly-colored cocktail came with a little paper umbrella perched on the rim, and with each successive round Crowley stacked them into a neat square, a festive funeral pyre for his sobriety. 

The demon was expansive; eyeing diners as they came and went and leaning over to whisper the occasional sly comment in Aziraphale’s ear, flirting breezily with their pierced-and-tattooed waiter (whose attentiveness became increasingly pronounced, until Aziraphale finally squeezed Crowley’s knee under the table and admonished him to have mercy on the poor young man), even deigning to sample some things from Aziraphale’s plate, for all that it was usually against his preference to eat in public. For his part, Aziraphale was mostly content to sit in companionable silence and watch Crowley find the rhythms of being out amongst the living once again. 

Mostly.

“So, is this-“ Aziraphale waved a hand at Crowley’s collection of empty glasses, “-phase one of your next diabolical plan? Because I have some thoughts if you mean to storm the gates of Heaven utterly sozzled.”

“Course that isn’t the plan,” Crowley answered, slurring his words a bit. He made a mental note to start pacing himself, very soon. “ _This_ is celebrating, angel. We just made the Queen of Hell look like a right _prat_. I’d say we’ve earned it.”

“I still don’t understand why she didn’t just destroy the two of us.”

“Me neither,” Crowley said brightly. “But I bet _they_ do.” He pointed up at the ceiling.

Aziraphale considered this while looking into his teacup. Over the course of this ordeal, he’d gotten rather good at knowing the difference between Crowley not being upset about something, and Crowley trying very hard not to seem upset about something. He reached out to take the demon’s hand. “Darling, forgive me for asking, but are you…quite all right?”

Crowley regarded him quizzically for a moment, and when he finally replied it was in a tone of forced, eerie calm. “Aziraphale,” he said, “over the past two days I have been verbally abused, slashed, burned and beaten. I thought the collective hive-mind of the world’s five-thousand biggest wankers was going to make you torture me to death. I had to stare down _the Devil_ and watch her _touch_ you, as if she had any right-“ his voice faltered, and he covered it by downing the rest of his drink. “I am definitely, patently, one-hundred percent _not all right._ ”

Aziraphale tried to respond, but Crowley held up a silencing finger with one hand and made a “One more round,” signal at the waiter with the other. “And if I had the time to crawl into our bed and pull the covers over my head and settle into being Not All Right for a solid fortnight, I would take it, believe me.” He looked around, then pitched his voice to a whisper and leaned closer for the angel to hear it. “But I don’t think we have that kind of time. I think Heaven and Hell are working together to muck things up for us, and I think if we give them too much time to recover they’re going to start right in on it again, so I am doing what the kids these days are calling _fast-tracking the process._ It’s not ideal, but it’s the best I can do right now.”

He slumped back in his seat, and Aziraphale sat stock-still in his, looking as if he might cry. Mortified, Crowley reached out and took his hand again.

“Bless it, angel, I’m sorry,” he said.

“No, no dear, _I’m_ sorry, how stupid of me to even ask-“

“Shut it, I didn’t mean it like that-“

“I should be helping you figure out how to deal with Heaven, and instead I let myself get distracted again.” Aziraphale sighed and looked down at their joined hands. “I think she may have had a point, you know. About my…arrogance.”

“Rubbish. _She’s_ arrogant.”

“Well, she was cast down for the sin of Pride…”

“Even back before she Fell, all she ever did was point out how much better she was than all of us.”

Aziraphale nodded. “She wrote me up once because my robes were two inches shorter than the regulation length.”

“Right?” Crowley scowled into his newly-delivered drink. “Was almost worth Falling, I thought sometimes, just to see her so bloody miserable.”

An awkward silence descended at that. Aziraphale almost let it play itself out, reach the point where one of them would make a joke or change the subject to begin planning in earnest. A few more seconds was all it would have taken.

Instead, he took a deep breath and blurted, “You can talk to me about it if you like, you know. The Fall.”

Crowley’s eyebrows furrowed behind his glasses. “I know,” he said quietly.

“Only if you wanted to.”

“I know.”

“And please don’t feel like I’m pressuring you to-“

“It wasn’t a fall for me.” The words came out of the demon’s mouth in a rush, as if pushed against their will. “It was a…a walk, really.”

Aziraphale set his teacup and his chopsticks down, folded his hands in his lap, and waited.

“After the war, you remember, the Almighty cast Lucifer down in front of everybody, of course, had to make an example, and I know a few of her generals fell with her, but for the rest of us…” He swallowed. “For me. She came to me, and asked me if I’d walk with Her, outside the Silver City.”

Aziraphale did remember that day, although in truth he hadn’t seen much, had been standing near the back when the Judgement had happened. He’d privately thought the whole thing rather tasteless. A good number of the archangels had been clapping and cheering with a touch more enthusiasm than Aziraphale had felt necessary, and he’d sworn he’d heard more than one voice raised in laughter when Lucifer’s wings had burst into flames.

“So I walked with Her,” Crowley continued. “I was scared, I knew I was in trouble. I didn’t fight for Lucifer, I didn’t fight at all, that was the whole point, I didn’t _want_ to fight anybody. I just thought Lucifer made some good points. About the world. About free will. So when the time came to pick sides, I couldn’t, I just wanted to know why things had to be this way…”

The party at the next table glanced over briefly. In his drunken state, Crowley’s volume control wasn’t perfect, and Aziraphale burned up a little energy to direct the other diners’ interests elsewhere. It might put a damper on the excellent service they’d enjoyed, but Crowley had probably had enough anyway.

“But I trusted Her.” Crowley knuckled at the corner of one eye. “So I walked with Her out of the Silver City. Into the darkness. And I tried to explain why I had so many questions, why I couldn’t just join the Host in the fight, and She just listened. And we got to this place, this…completely empty wasteland, cause Hell didn’t exist yet, you know, there hadn’t been a need. And She told me…” He sniffed. “She told me they were good questions. And that She was sorry that She couldn’t answer them. And then She called me by my name, my real name, last time I ever heard anybody say it, and She told me that this was goodbye.”

Behind Aziraphale’s ribcage, a white-hot hand closed around his heart and twisted.

“I asked Her where we were, and She said that depended on what Lucifer made of it. On what all us Fallen made of it. I already knew, of course, deep down I did, but when she actually called me _Fallen_ I, I couldn’t stand it, I begged Her to forgive me, to give me one more chance. I told Her I’d stop asking questions, that I’d do whatever She said from now on, that I’d be _good_.”

It was so hard to keep silent, but Aziraphale bit the inside of his cheek and held firm. It would be an act of thoughtless cruelty to interrupt now, even with the intent to comfort.

“She s-s-said…said that wasn’t something She was prepared to ask of me. And then She left me there all alone.”

The demon slumped forward with his head in his hands, his shoulders shaking.

“Excuse me, sir?” piped up a voice from behind Aziraphale. “I’m sorry but…is everything all right?”

Aziraphale looked over to find their waiter, his youthful face drawn up in a look of concern that clashed endearingly with the tattoos on his neck.

Crowley snarled his fingers into his hair and ignored the lad, and Aziraphale offered his gentlest of smiles. “Quite all right, thank you. We’re a bit maudlin, is all. Remembering old times.” 

The waiter frowned, clearly torn between professional reticence and natural empathy. “Um, okay. Can I get you anything else, or…?”

“The bill, I think.” Aziraphale laid a hand on Crowley’s shoulder and gave the boy a reassuring nod. “When you have a minute.”

Left in silence once again, Aziraphale kept his hand on Crowley’s shoulder and waited. The demon gave a violent shudder and then looked up over the top of his sunglasses. His eyes were bright, but dry.

“You didn’t Fall, Aziraphale,” he croaked. “You’d know.”

“Crowley,” Aziraphale sighed. “My love, I’m so sorry.”

“Don’t be, I’m _glad_ it happened, I wouldn’t want to be up there anyway, rubbing shoulders with all those empty-headed…seagulls. No offense.”

“None taken. I’m actually not sure what that means-“

“And it’s for the best anyway, right? Look how it turned out. They’re up there doing…” He flapped a hand wildly, “Whatever it is they’re up to, and they’re doing it cause they’re _scared_ of us. Or maybe just you, actually, I’m not sure they give a toss about me up there, but the point is- the point is-“

“Darling, I think it might be best if you sobered up.”

“N’a minute. I got a point.”

“All right.”

“Issa good point.”

“Let’s hear it.”

“My point.” Crowley rubbed his temples with one hand. “Shit.”

“Thank you very much,” Aziraphale said to the waiter as the bill was dropped on the table. He noticed that Crowley’s last two drinks had not been put on the bill, and that the lad had scribbled “Feel better!” on it, alongside a drawing of a smiling face.

“You know,” Aziraphale said thoughtfully, as much to himself as to Crowley, “Sometimes I wonder…because you, for all that you’re, well, _you_ , you’re still so sweet-

“Oh bloody hell, angel, don’t start.”

“It’s just sometimes I think, She must have had a reason…I mean to say, don’t you think it’s possible that She…sent you, well, Below, because She might have wanted…wanted good people on both sides?”

Crowley froze. For a moment he said nothing, then he straightened up, grimaced, and shook his head. Not in negation, but from the physical effort of clearing the alcohol from his system.

“Just for that, you old _philosopher_ , you,” he growled. “You can pick up the check.”

Aziraphale paid, leaving an obscenely large tip. He took Crowley’s arm as they passed the hostess stand, where their server was watching them leave with nervous eyes. Crowley nodded politely at the young man, then leaned over and kissed Aziraphale’s temple as they left.

“So,” Crowley muttered as they stood blinking in the early afternoon sun. “Are you ready to ascend?”

“You know, I very much am,” Aziraphale agreed. “Did you have a route in mind?”

“Main entrance.” Crowley’s voice, newly sober, was now icily certain. “I want them to know we’re coming.”

——

Aziraphale stepped onto the escalator to Heaven without breaking stride, as if he was on his way to deliver a routine report the way he had for centuries.

Crowley hesitated a sparse few seconds before following him, slouching against the handrail a few steps behind the angel, temporarily transfixed by the unfamiliar sight of that polished floor falling away from him.

He knew that he was being propelled by a desperate, manic energy, the same energy that caused certain ancient humans to daub colored mud on their naked bodies, pick up a spear, and charge screaming at the pikes and swords of the Roman Empire. He knew when this energy ran out it would leave him weak and aching, that the timing may not work out, that he might not be strong enough for Aziraphale when the angel needed him. 

He could not, however, let himself worry about that now. He’d wasted too much time already, hoping that things would sort themselves out.

There was someone waiting for them at the top of the escalator.

Aziraphale was still a couple steps ahead, standing up straight with his hands in his pockets like the perfect upstanding gentleman on his way to work. When Crowley sidled up next to him, he saw the sea-green eyes of the angel who’d been sent to receive them go wide with surprise. The angel opened his mouth soundlessly a few times, then brushed his shiny black hair off his forehead with a shaking hand.

“P-principality Aziraphale,” he stammered. “Welcome back to the Silver City. The, er, Archangel Gabriel warned- I mean, _told_ \- us you might be stopping by.”

“Did he? Oh, good,” Aziraphale said coolly. “As a matter of fact I would like to speak with Gabriel. Immediately, if you please.”

The angel glanced sidelong at Crowley. “If perhaps your…friend…would like to wait downstairs?” The word _friend_ stuck in his throat coming up.

Crowley lowered his glasses and smiled at the angel, who actually took a hasty step back.

“No, no I think not,” Aziraphale answered, taking Crowley firmly by the arm. “We’ll be seeing Gabriel together, actually.”

“What’s your name, then?” Crowley asked the angel, who jumped at the sound of the demon’s voice.

“Karael,” the angel answered hesitantly. “And I’m sorry, um…sir…but I was given specific orders not to-“

“Right. Karael. Here’s the thing.” Crowley began to stalk around Karael in a slow circle while Aziraphale watched, hands still in pockets and trying very hard not to look amused. “I’m going with Aziraphale one way or the other. We’re sort of a package deal these days, yeah? So either you let us in and you go on about your blessed day, or you do your best to try and keep me out. And I shall be forced to do something _terrible_ to you to get past you. Not cause I want to, you see, but because you’ve left me no other choice. So I ask you, Karael…” He took off his glasses and stopped in front of the angel, peering down into his green eyes. “What do _you_ want to do?” He stepped just a little bit closer, just enough to bring them uncomfortably close, to the point where Karael would either have to stand his ground or take another step back to ensure that Crowley didn’t touch him. “Ssstand aside, or try to ssstop me?”

Karael’s throat worked. “Why don’t-“ He coughed, took a step back, and tried again. “Why don’t you both follow me? I’ll let the Archangel know that you both need to see him.”

Aziraphale beamed. “We really do appreciate it,” he said.

——

They were shown to an office high up in a gleaming white-gold tower. Karael saw them into a waiting room furnished with a plush white leather sofa and an empty marble desk, asked that they please not touch anything, and beat a hasty retreat.

Aziraphale settled onto the sofa while Crowley leaned against the picture window, staring down into the sweeping promenades of the Silver City.

“Looks about the same,” he muttered. “Although I don’t think there was quite so much traffic, in my day.”

“Yes, well,” Aziraphale sighed. “I suppose even Heaven isn’t immune from the march of progress.”

“Is that an _Apple store_?”

“Don’t be ridiculous.” Aziraphale stood to join Crowley by the window, his eyes following to where the demon was pointing. “Oh.”

“Looks like one.”

“I’m sure there’s some other explanation-“

“The two angels that just came out are taking a selfie.”

“No. Didn’t _you_ invent those?”

“Took the credit for it. Not sure I even _want_ it anymore, if it’s made it’s way up here. Good sign that something’s over, when it gets popular in Heaven, right?”

“Now, there’s no need to be nasty-“

“Wait a sec.” Crowley nudged Aziraphale and pointed out over the horizon, where something huge and dark floated in the amethyst sky, pulsing with ribbons of brilliant color. He could make out the shapes of angels, small as insects in comparison to the thing, flying about the structure, bringing materials to and fro.

“That’s a galaxy, isn’t it?” Crowley whispered, the mocking tone in his voice suddenly gone. “They’re building a new one.”

Aziraphale gazed out at the enormous creation and slipped his arms around Crowley’s waist. “Yes, it looks like they are.”

“Didn’t think they still built things up here.”

“Well, the humans have taken to space travel awfully fast,” Aziraphale mused. “Seems like only weeks ago they were figuring out the internal combustion engine, and now they’ve started sending people into space. I suppose the Almighty might have wanted room for them to grow.”

“Hmm.” Crowley watched the construction in silence a few minutes. “I helped build a few celestial bodies. Before.”

“I know.”

“Hard work. Satisfying. I was…I was good at it.”

“Yes.” Aziraphale laid his head on the demon’s shoulder, lightly kissed the side of his neck. “I’ve seen some pictures, of your work. I’d love to see it up close sometime.”

Crowley sighed. Aziraphale squeezed him a bit tighter.

“You’re good at lots of things.”

Crowley might have been about to respond, either with a flippant remark or an honest admission (he had a number of both on his mind, and had not decided), when there was a short, authoritative knock on the door.

Without waiting for an answer, the door opened and the Archangel Gabriel stepped inside.


	17. "How can you love me, when you don't love yourself?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So there should be one more chapter and then an epilogue after this! Sorry for bit of a wait with this one, this chapter was the hardest to write so far.
> 
> Also sorry for, well, this.

At the appearance of the archangel, both Crowley and Aziraphale turned and attempted to stand protectively in front of the other. This led to them standing in a sort of awkward tangle. At the sight of them, Gabriel’s upper lip twitched in an involuntary display of contempt.

“Oh, for the love of-“ he snapped. “Get away from that window before someone sees, would you?”

The pair exchanged bemused looks and moved over to the sofa. Aziraphale perched on the edge, straight-backed and hands politely folded, while Crowley draped himself against the left arm and started examining his fingernails.

Gabriel sat down at the desk across from them, steepled his fingers, and heaved a put-upon sigh.

“So,” he began. “When I heard you were on your way, Aziraphale, I hoped you were coming to plead for clemency on behalf of your rotten little boyfriend. I’ll admit I was looking forward to it.”

“Planning to have a nice gloat?” Crowley mused. “Not very befitting of an archangel, is it?”

“I’m sorry, were you presuming to judge me, _demon_?” Gabriel’s eyes snapped with anger, and Crowley grinned in response.

“I’ll do a lot more than presume, you great purple-eyed pillock-“

Aziraphale held up a hand and Crowley fell silent with an irritated hiss.

“Now that was just what you might call wishful thinking on my part,” Gabriel said through gritted teeth. “What I thought was actually happening was that you were coming to apologize. Maybe try to prove that you still belonged in Heaven. But seeing as you brought _him_ , I’m going to guess that’s not the case.”

He sighed again and sadly shook his head.

“Once again, Aziraphale, you manage to disappoint me.”

Aziraphale didn’t flinch, but Crowley could still see the way the words stung him. Just the faintest change in the angel’s eyes, invisible to anyone who hadn’t spent six-thousand years memorizing their shape and color.

Just as Crowley had never been forthcoming about the details of what went on in Hell, Aziraphale had never talked much about the managerial practices of Heaven. Crowley had assumed that there was nothing of interest to discuss; he remembered the place well enough on his own, after all.

Except now, as Crowley watched Aziraphale try to remain unmoved by Gabriel’s piercing judgement, he realized he really didn’t know how it was up here, anymore. Crowley had never lived in Heaven _after_ the First War, after the knowledge had spread that it was possible to be a bad angel, possible to fail, for the bliss of Her presence to be turned into agony.

Heaven had been permanently changed, after Lucifer. In a way, the Fall had been her greatest triumph.

Aziraphale reached out and took Crowley’s hand, fortifying himself before returning Gabriel’s stern gaze.

“Yes, well,” he demurred, “I’m actually here because I feel you owe me…owe us, rather…a bit of an apology.”

Gabriel raised his eyebrows and said nothing.

“I mean, this whole thing, it’s all rather tawdry, isn’t it? Trying to play us against one another, forging documents to make me think I’d Fallen, even getting Lucifer involved? Really, Gabriel, you must have had to call in every favor you had, and to be honest, it’s all starting to feel a bit personal.”

The archangel spread his hands in a gesture of mock confusion.

“Forged documents? I’m afraid I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Oh you don’t, wankwings? A form letter with your signature on it?” Crowley cut in.

Gabriel shrugged. “Do you have it on you? I’d be happy to take a look at it.”

“Well…no,” Crowley answered, his stomach sinking. “I, um…destroyed it.”

“I see.” Gabriel turned back to Aziraphale with a pitying look. “That’s a shame. Might have helped support your argument, if you could show me what it said.”

“It accused me of destroying immortal souls,” Aziraphale replied, his eyes flicking angrily at Crowley. “But that isn’t even possible.”

“Why not?”

“Well…well, it’s in the name, isn’t it? Immortal.”

“So? Angels and demons are technically ‘immortal’, but they can still be destroyed.”

“But where do they _go_?”

Even as he spoke the question, Aziraphale grimaced at the way it made him sound like a child, and the patronizing smile Gabriel gave him in return.

“Where do demons go after they’re melted with holy water? Where did our brothers and sisters who died in the First War go? Not for us to know, I’m afraid.”

“But that’s-“

“That’s what, Aziraphale? It’s not fair? It’s not right? Are you presuming to _question_ the Creator’s plan?”

“No! I’m just…seeking a little _clarification_ , is all-“

“You’re supposed to be an angel. You’re not supposed to _need_ clarification. You’re _supposed_ to have faith.” Gabriel leaned forward, a wolfish smile teasing at his features.

“Are you _really sure_ you’re not Fallen, Aziraphale?”

 _Are we sure?_ a dark voice in the back of Crowley’s head whispered. _There’s more than one way to go, isn’t there? Are we sure he wasn’t sauntering vaguely downwards this whole time?_

Crowley thought of his own Fall, remembered sobbing on the barren ground of what would soon become Hell. Remembered his wings turning black as the rot and corruption of the place infected him. Remembered forgetting how to stand upright, wanting only to crawl on his belly like the loathsome thing he had become.

He’d thought he’d stay a snake forever, back then. He hadn’t taken an upright form again, until he saw a figure in the Garden that had made him remember what it had been like to be beautiful.

_Is that what happened? Did he pull you up? Or did you drag him down?_

Crowley glanced over at Aziraphale, terrified of what he would see. The angel looked as if he might shatter to pieces if lightly tapped with a spoon.

“I don’t suppose…” he said hoarsely. “I could speak to Her about this?”

For the first time, Gabriel’s violet eyes held a trace of sympathy. “You can try. I’m told She hears the voices of all her children. I wouldn’t count on getting an answer back, though. She’s very busy these days.”

Aziraphale looked down at his hands and nodded, as if coming to a decision. Then he stood, drew back his arm, and punched Gabriel in the jaw.

“You’re lying!” he shouted. “You’re lying, I know you are, _I know it_!”

 _Oh, fuck._ Crowley jumped to his feet, trying to get between Aziraphale and the archangel. Gabriel was already coming around the desk, his face bright red with fury. He swatted Crowley aside with an arm made of steel, then shoved Aziraphale back into the couch. The angel stumbled, then regained his footing and lunged at Gabriel once more. 

Crowley managed to get a hold of him, catching an elbow in the midsection for his trouble but hanging on. Aziraphale was frantic, trembling; Crowley could feel the potential for violence coming off of him in waves, hot and pulsing and _wrong._

“Excellent,” Gabriel sneered, massaging his swelling jaw. “Physically attacking an archangel to prove that you’re not damned. Keep it up and maybe you’ll merit the boiling sulfur treatment after all.”

“He’s lying,” Aziraphale whispered, still straining against Crowley’s grip.

“I know,” Crowley answered, looking pointedly at Gabriel over Aziraphale’s head. “But this isn’t the way to get him to admit it, angel.”

“You said I’d feel it, you said I’d _know_ -“

“You would. I promise.”

Gabriel laughed at that, low and conspiratorial.

“Yes, Aziraphale, listen to the serpent of Eden’s promises. You know he’s the reason you’re in this mess, don’t you?”

“Shut up,” Crowley hissed.

“You told Lucifer yourself you were trying to make him Fall, didn’t you? Like, this morning?”

“That wasn’t- I just said that to trick her.”

“Oh, I’m sorry, I misunderstood,” Gabriel said. “I didn’t realize you managed to outwit the Deceiver and Father of All Lies. I thought what happened is that you did what you _were always meant to do_. You know, as a _servant of Hell_. You may be too stupid to do your job right on purpose, I guess, but maybe you were _just stupid enough_ to do it by accident.”

Aziraphale had stopped struggling, was now just hanging limply in Crowley’s arms. 

“That’s not…that’s not what happened,” Crowley said hoarsely.

Gabriel spread his hands again. He’d already miracled away the bruise left by Aziraphale’s fist.

“Who’s to say what happened? You can interpret it however _you_ want. The way it’s going in Heaven and Hell’s official records is that the two of you met in Eden, and some six-thousand years later, the Principality Aziraphale was corrupted by you, like so many others before him. Your track record speaks for itself, not to mention Lucifer hearing you admit it. That corruption culminated in Aziraphale committing what amounts to murder. And it really doesn’t matter if the Almighty personally casts him down or not. What matters is we have records of what happened that we can show to every angel _and_ demon who gets ideas about fraternizing.”

“That’s…that’s _wrong_ ,” Aziraphale gasped.

“That is _not_ a judgement you get to make,” Gabriel snarled. “You have _no idea_ what I’ve been dealing with up here, since that stunt you pulled with the hellfire. So yeah, you’re right, Aziraphale. It’s personal. And if you had just done your _fucking_ job, this wouldn’t be happening. And by the way.” His voice dropped to a vicious whisper as he leaned in close. “Don’t go telling yourself that _he_ -“ he jerked his head at Crowley, “-is worth it. You think I don’t know how demons are? He’ll lose interest in you, now that you’re fully corrupted. Just wait. The fact that you really thought he loved you just proves you were never worthy of this place.”

“I’ve heard enough,” Crowley snapped. “Let’s go, angel.”

“Take a good last look around,” Gabriel taunted. “It’s the last time either of you are ever going to see it.”

“Bloody well hope so,” Crowley muttered under his breath. “Aziraphale. Let’s _go_.”

The angel trailed along with him, falling behind until Crowley put an arm around his waist and forced him to keep up.

“Crowley,” he whispered. “Gabriel…he was making all that up, right? You didn’t…you wouldn’t…?”

Even only half-voiced, the question was like a barbed skewer through Crowley’s heart. For a moment, dark instinct boiled up in him and threatened to spill over. _Yes, angel_ , he could say, _I corrupted you. My life’s work, every drinking session and walk in the park, every glass of wine and slice of cake, all for the purpose of ruining you. Every time you made me feel like I wasn’t a crawling, worthless thing, it only ever brought me happiness because I knew that it was making you worse._

He could say it. He could say all of it, and maybe the agony that Aziraphale’s unfinished question had caused would pass a little bit faster.

But he bit his tongue, shoved the hurt aside with an expertise born of millennia of practice, and half-dragged, half-carried his broken angel out of Heaven.

——

Crowley took them to St. James’s Park. He wasn’t sure where else to go.

Once they’d left the smothering white glare of Heaven, Aziraphale’s pace had strengthened to keep up with him, and Crowley was able to let him go without worrying he’d collapse to the ground. They walked, Crowley slouching with his hands shoved in his pockets, Aziraphale gazing coolly into the middle distance. They did not speak.

Finally, they passed the spot where they’d been abducted from, the day of their trials. Crowley cleared his throat.

“We should run. For real, this time. Before Lucifer comes back for us.”

“I thought you said she couldn’t force us into Hell,” Aziraphale answered. His voice sounded so far away.

“Yeah, well, now I’m thinking I might have been wrong after all. Seeing as how badly I managed to screw everything up.”

“You-“

“Go on, say I didn’t.”

“You didn’t _mean_ to.”

“Are you sure? Seemed like back there you had some doubts.”

“Oh, Crowley, I _am_ sorry about that, of course I didn’t think-“

“Well, maybe you should have!” Crowley abandoned the path they were on, wandered toward the edge of the water. He expected Aziraphale to follow him, and was surprised, when he spun around, to see the angel still standing on the pavement. “Maybe it’s all true, what Gabriel said! Maybe every minute you and I spent together was just leading up to this. Does it really matter whether I meant to do it or not, when you get right down to it?”

Aziraphale looked shocked. “Of _course_ it matters!”

“Right, fine, keep telling yourself that.” Crowley’s voice was brittle, edging into cruel despite his attempts to stop it. He sat down in the grass on the edge of the water, heedless of the looks from passers-by and the snow that still blanketed the ground. 

The ghosts were gone, blasted back into the raw firmament or sent to worlds beyond, but Crowley could still hear them, reminding him what he was. 

Crowley stared out at the water. He wondered briefly if Aziraphale had walked away, but no, there he was, crouching down next to him.

“I wish you’d talk to me, Crowley,” he said softly.

“I think…” Crowley’s voice stuck in his throat. “I think I need to be alone for a while, angel.”

“Oh.” The sadness in Aziraphale’s tone was brought another sharp twist of pain in Crowley’s chest. “Yes. Of course. Should I…I mean, can I expect you home later tonight?”

Crowley’s vision went blurry at the word _home_ , and he hurriedly looked away from Aziraphale and back out toward the water. “I don’t think so. I think I might…be away for a while. Could use some time to think.”

A hurt little sigh, and Crowley hoped wildly that the angel was going to refuse him. Order Crowley to stop being a fool, to come back to the bookshop where they both belonged, to shove all this nonsense out of his head, forget Hell, forget Gabriel, forget everything that wasn’t the two of them. If he asked him to, Crowley would do it. He wasn’t strong enough to resist.

But Aziraphale only squeezed Crowley’s shoulder and stood. “Whatever you think is best, my dear. Although I do hope you’ll call and let me know you’re alright. When you’re ready.”

“Yeah. Sure.”

_He knows. He knows it’s for the best if he gets away from me, before I’ve ruined him completely._

“Crowley, don’t…please don’t do anything foolish.”

Crowley looked up at Aziraphale’s careworn face.

_Ask me. Tell me. Drag me back there with you if you have to, please, angel, please._

“Bit late for that, isn’t it?”

The angel sighed once more, leaned over to kiss Crowley on the forehead, and then walked away.

Crowley sat by the water until dusk. As the sun disappeared the cold grew oppressive, and when he found himself shivering he finally got up and began to walk back to his flat.

It was fully dark when he got home. He didn’t bother turning any lights on. He didn’t check in with his plants.

He locked the door behind him and collapsed into his serpent form.

The floor was ice-cold on his scales. He moved about sluggishly, seeking the darkest, warmest corner of the flat he could find, and when he found it he coiled up into himself and went to sleep.

Occasionally, the phone rang. At first it would wake Crowley up, but as the days turned into weeks, he stopped hearing it.

——

When he heard footsteps inside the flat, he summoned what little strength he had, and lifted his head.

It had gotten so cold. Even if he’d wanted to, he hardly could have moved. He wasn’t lonely. He wasn’t hungry. He was just cold, and when he slept he didn’t notice it as much. So he slept when he could, and waited when he couldn’t.

First he heard the footsteps, and then he felt the warmth. Sweet, nourishing, irresistible; his body cried out for it and he found himself slithering from his hiding place.

He couldn’t really think in words anymore, didn’t have the energy, but the hope came to him in a series of sensory memories. Aziraphale’s smile, his gently chiding voice as he offered his sleeve, the scratch of tan wool against Crowley’s scales and the delicious heat of his angel’s body as he wrapped around him, safe, _home_.

“There he is. There’s my sweet lost serpent.”

The voice. Not Aziraphale’s. 

The sense memories crashed over him again, this time bringing fear instead of joy. Teeth, claws, chains, fingernails, the scratch of a pen, the snapping of fingers, hot breath on the back of his neck, each one signaling danger, danger, run, _hide_.

Too late. She was scooping him up, hands gently squeezing the length of his body, and despite himself he arched into that warmth, feeling dizzy as his blood started to rush.

“You poor thing. Did the angel leave you here all alone?”

Crowley didn’t speak, still couldn’t speak. 

“Oh, but you’re so _cold_. Hang on, let’s get you warmed up.”

A sense of dropping, and then the warmth was all around him. Crowley lifted his head, trying to make sense of where he was, then the perspective clicked and he realized Lucifer had sat down and cradled him in her lap. It was as warm as sunshine there, and as much he wanted to get away from her he couldn’t bring himself to crawl back onto the cold floor.

She stroked his scales and talked to him, her voice thrumming pleasantly through his body.

“Of course the angel left you behind. You couldn’t expect him to stay. Gabriel told me all about your little visit to Heaven, you know. So you understand. Even if Aziraphale hasn’t Fallen yet, it’s only a matter of time before you bring him the rest of the way down. You can’t help it, sweetheart. It’s in your nature.”

Crowley waited for her hands to turn to claws and start to tear him open. They didn’t.

“I’m here to give you one last chance, Crowley. Come back to Hell with me. We can put all this behind us. You can be one of our favorites again. You’ll be back where you belong, and you won’t have to be alone, and your angel will be safe. Without you to tempt him, he can just stay on the edge where he is now. He doesn’t have to Fall for real.”

She squeezed him again, this time a little too hard. Crowley twisted in the Devil’s grip. Her voice continued, still in that soft, cajoling tone.

“I could take you back whether you want to come or not, Crowley. I can come and take you anytime. And if the angel is within my grasp when I do, then I’ll just take you both. Wouldn’t it be better for everyone, if you just came with me now?”

_It would. It would be better. Just say yes. Just let Aziraphale go, let him stay up in the sun where he belongs._

But Crowley was weak. He said nothing, and eventually Lucifer slid him off her lap and back onto the frigid tiles.

“Have it your way,” she sighed. 

The click of her heels counted down the seconds. He could still be strong. He could still end this all right now.

“I’ll be seeing you, Crowley. I’ll be seeing you both.”

The door clicked, and the flat was quiet once again.


	18. "There's gotta be a Heaven, cause I've already done my time in Hell."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I couldn't decide if I wanted this penultimate chapter to be soft or sexy, and then the lovely and talented Stanningjay reminded me I could do both. Hope y'all enjoy.

_Brrrrrrrring._

“Hi. This is Anthony Crowley. Uh. I’m probably not in right now, or asleep, and busy, or something, but leave a message after the tone and I’ll get right back to you. Ciao.”

_Beeeeeeeep._

——

“Crowley, it’s me. Listen, I know you said you wanted to be alone, and of course I understand. I just…I feel awful about what happened in Heaven. And our conversation afterward. I do hope you’re alright. Although it’s fine if you’re not, as well. I mean, not _fine_ , but don’t think you need to suddenly feel better on my account, unless that’s what _you_ want, and… Oh, dear, I’m making a mess of this, aren’t I? I’ll leave you be. See you soon, my love.”

——

“Hello, dear. I’m guessing you’re taking another one of your long naps…Hope you don’t sleep through the whole century! Erm. Anyway. I thought you should know, I think that miracle you put on the spot you parked the Bentley must have worn off. There were a _lot_ of parking tickets on it when I passed it this morning. Now, not to worry, I took care of them, but I had to go to somewhat…extreme measures to hide the car to make sure it wouldn’t keep happening. It’s in the same spot, just, well…it’s a bit complicated. Give me a call if you need any help with it! Or for any other reason! Goodbye!”

——

“Happy Saint Valentine’s day, darling. You know, for a perfectly innocent religious holiday, this one seems to cause the humans an awful lot of stress? Three different men came in here today in an absolute _panic_ , looking for gifts to buy. As if it’s so hard to plan ahead, I mean, it comes on the same day every year, doesn’t it? Well, they weren’t happy to hear that, let me tell you. Oh, and Miss Anathema and her young man Newton stopped by. He was taking her out for dinner in the city, isn’t that nice? There’d been some sort of mix-up with the reservations actually, so I sent them over to that nice bistro around the corner. You remember, the one that did that perfect shrimp scampi? Anyway, they asked after you. I told them you’d see them next time they came around. I…I hope it’s soon. Bye for now, love.”

——

“Beeeep. God, I _hate_ that sound… Um. Right. I promised myself I wasn’t going to call you again. But then I had a bit to drink, and realized that was a _bloody stupid idea_ , I most definitely _should_ call you again, because you’re not being fair, Crowley, you’re not. I say _one_ foolish thing, just _one_ , and suddenly I’m personon…person nongra…you don’t want to talk to me anymore? Well, fine. I don’t want to talk to _you_ either. I’m hanging up right now. S’all so stupid. You know this is exactly what they wanted, right? I should just hang up, if you’re going to be so thick about it. As if I even _care_ if Heaven doesn’t want me any more. Bunch of…what did you call them? Ducks? No. Seagulls. Right. Great bunch of flapping seagulls, the lot of them. Ugh. I miss you so much. I’m hanging up now.”

——

“Ahem. Morning, Crowley. Erm…I think I might have called you last night. I don’t recall what I said, but it looks like I made quite a mess of the ornithology section afterward. So, um, I hope I didn’t say anything untoward. I thought about trying to erase the message from here, but I’m a bit worried I’d blow something up again. Just…just delete it if you haven’t listened to it yet, alright?”

——

“Crowley. I wanted to let you know I’m going to be out of town for a while. Could use a bit of a change of scenery. I may go to Florence. Or Prague. Or Buenos Aires. I haven’t quite decided. But I just wanted you to know in case you came by the bookshop looking for me. I went and got myself one of those mobile telephones, and the nice young lady at the shop showed me how to send you something called a ‘text message’, so you should have the mobile number now. And she said I’d be able to send you pictures? I’m not sure how I’m supposed to get the photographs onto the phone, but I suppose I can figure that out when I need to. Anyway, call me on that number if you need me. I’ll be back in a few weeks, I expect. No more than a month. Maybe two. I love you.”

——

“…so I just hold it like this? But how can it hear me, my mouth’s not anywhere near the…oh, well…CROWLEY? CAN YOU HEAR ME? Hopefully you can hear me, I think I’ll be asked to leave this museum if I keep shouting. Hmm. It’s strange, all this traveling. It reminds me of the old days, a bit. I keep…turning about and expecting to run into you. You always did have the habit of turning up _just_ when I began to suspect I wouldn’t see you again. So I’ve just been, hmm, waiting for you to show up and prove me wrong. Maybe when I go down to the museum cafe you’ll be there, reading the paper and sporting some ridiculous new hairstyle. I’d…I’d very much like to see that. I think I’ll go down there now. And if you are there, then, well, I suppose you won’t hear this. But if you are hearing this, and you’re not here…that’s alright too. I just wish…I wish a lot of things. I wish I knew if you were happy. Even if you weren’t with me, I’d be alright if I knew that. I hope you understand. Goodbye for now.”

——

“-to see me again…….know it’s been a long time…….thought if you could just _explain_ ……not supposed…questions, I know……not fair, is it?……why give us.…if you didn’t……I’m not afraid, just…… _angry_ , to be perfectly honest……left him there all alone…and _you_ ……love him, and he loves me, I know it……so why? Why make it so hard to……if it’s my choice…….not afraid, but he is…so if…asking…please…not for me, then for him……Amen…”

——

“Crowley. If you’re there, please pick up. Lucifer came by the shop today. I’m worried about you, darling. We don’t have to talk if you don’t want, but if you could please just let me know you’re alright? Please. Call me back whenever you like. I’ll be here.”

——

“Crowley, I’m very sorry but I’m coming over. I can’t just wait here not knowing if you’re safe or not. If you get this and don’t want me to come, just call back and let me know. And if I get there and you don’t want me to stay, I’ll turn right back around and go home, I promise. And if…if anything’s happened…if you need help…just stay where you are. I’m on my way.”

——

It had been Crowley’s tie that had finally snapped Aziraphale’s resolve.

All through his long, lonely winter, Aziraphale had respected Crowley’s wishes to be left alone, and had done his best not to worry. It wasn’t as if months-long disappearances were unusual for the demon, even if the circumstances preceding this one were. And at first, Aziraphale had appreciated the space. He’d needed time to think on his own as well, to come to grips with the fact that he may be a fallen angel, or may be about to become one very soon. In solitude, he could look at the issue from all angles, contextualize it using his vast knowledge of history and myth and form a solid, logical conclusion on which his conscience could rest peacefully.

Never mind that he _didn’t_. The point was that he _could_ have.

He’d tried, of course, but mainly he’d puttered around the bookshop, distracted himself with human frivolities, and most of all, missed Crowley terribly. He knew that the telephone messages he left at his lowest moments were probably going unheard; the truth of it was he just wanted to hear the demon’s voice on the recorded greeting. _Ciao_ became his least favorite word in any human language, bar none.

Traveling had helped. It hadn’t eradicated the pain, but it had eased it. Aziraphale had returned to London refreshed and once again resolute in his commitment. He would not be possessive. He would not grab and twist and manipulate Crowley the way Hell did, would not cajole and nudge and try to dull the demon’s edges the way that Heaven had tried to do to Aziraphale. He’d be a good friend.

Then had come the Devil, and the tie.

Aziraphale had found it in the pocket of his spring overcoat. Clearly one of Crowley’s; black, made of a sort of textured fabric that glinted red when the light hit it just right. He couldn’t recall how it had gotten into his coat pocket. Perhaps Crowley had taken it off for some reason while they were out, and given it to the angel to hold? It didn’t matter. Aziraphale had taken it down to the bookshop and left it curled up, innocuously, on a shelf behind the cashbox. If he caught it from the corner of his eye he could imagine for a moment it was a snake, dozing contentedly in a square of sunlight.

Lucifer had spotted it almost instantly.

She’d breezed in, fixed the coffee machine with a wave of her hand and a simpering smile, and told Aziraphale she’d come to see if he’d reconsidered her offer. There had been customers in the bookshop at the time, and Aziraphale had been very concerned for their safety as he explained to her, quietly but firmly, that no, he’d thought about it and he was quite happy where he was, thank you very much. She’d said that was a shame, and she was looking forward to the day he’d come around.

Then her eyes had gone dark, her smile had gone from sweet to predatory in the space of a breath, and she’d reached out and snatched the tie up off the shelf before he could stop her.

“ _This_ looks familiar,” she purred. “Miss him, do we?”

She’d run her hands over the fabric, twisted it between her fingers, and Aziraphale had seen _red_.

It was the presumption of it all. The way she grabbed at things without asking, the way she only used touch as a way to control or hurt, the way she bent her surroundings to her will with no regard for the beauty or symmetry of anything.

It was just _wrong_.

Aziraphale had returned her question with a pinched smile and the suggestion that she have a nice day. Lucifer had laughed, too loud in the quiet shop, and pocketed the tie.

“I miss him, too,” she’d whispered, then winked and sashayed out into the cool spring morning.

As she’d left Aziraphale knew that he was being manipulated once more. But he couldn’t just stay home and wonder if Crowley was alright, not after seeing the predatory gleam in Lucifer’s eyes.

He took a cab to Mayfair, just in case he needed to preserve his energy, miraculous or otherwise, for something else.

When he got to Crowley’s building, he felt the tiniest bit of relief. Even out here on the street he could sense the demon’s presence, dark and warm and familiar. He could also sense that no other inhuman beings, ethereal or occult, had been nearby recently. He wondered briefly if he should just consider the matter satisfied and go home, but now that he was here, now that Crowley was so close by Aziraphale could feel his presence as a physical ache, he found himself unable to tear himself away. He took the elevator up, promising himself he would leave immediately once he’d seen with his own eyes that Crowley was safe.

He let himself into the flat (with the key Crowley had given him, thank you very much, no breaking and entering for _this_ Principality), and been shocked, first by the cold and then by the sorry state of the plants. They were all dead, withered to brown husks, and Aziraphale wondered if perhaps his senses had betrayed him and Crowley had gone off somewhere else to do his thinking. But no, now that he was here there was no denying the demon’s presence; the air practically vibrated with it. He must be hiding, or asleep, or both. 

Aziraphale sighed, and knelt on the floor to touch the icy tiles. From his hand came a warm white glow, spreading out from his fingertips along the floor to break against the walls. Soon the floor in the entire flat had grown as warm as a sun-baked stone.

That done, he turned to the sound system. The little black machine had no buttons except for an on-off switch and a volume control. Aziraphale wasn’t even sure where the actual music came from; there seemed to be no apparatus to hold discs or tapes or anything. Shrugging, he took his chances and pushed the on-off button, hoping nothing too infernal would come out of the speakers.

_”Suuuunday morniiing…briiings the dawn in…”_

The song was most definitely not to Aziraphale’s tastes, but it was at least quiet, and soothing in its own jagged, off-key way, so he let it play and made his way over to the plants.

He brought them back to life, one by one. As the shriveled leaves stretched and turned green, he whispered encouragement to them, told them everything was going to be fine now, they were safe.

“Don’t listen to him,” came a growl from behind the angel’s back. “You’ve got twenty-four hours to get your act together or it’s into the bin with the lot of you. See if I’m kidding.”

Aziraphale spun around, the joy in his heart turning to apprehension as he came to face the demon. Crowley was leaning against the doorway, dressed, sunglasses on, jaw set, arms folded. He couldn’t be saying _Stay away_ any clearer if it had been written on his forehead.

Aziraphale stayed back. He shoved his hands in his pockets and tried his best to look aloof.

“You really shouldn’t be so hard on them,” he said. “When’s the last time you watered them?”

“Er.” Crowley pulled his mobile out of his pocket. “Well, it’s…April, now. So…?”

As an angel, it was given unto Aziraphale to possess a vast multitude of judgmental looks. The one he fixed on Crowley now was tailored to inspire remorse, self-reflection and an invigorating dose of desire to make amends in whoever it fell upon.

Crowley made a face like he’d bitten into a lemon, then gestured in the air at the soft guitar strains floating around them.

“You’re _really_ not going to like the rest of this record, you know. It’s all illegal drugs and screeching violin feedback from here.”

“Crowley.” Aziraphale heard his voice catch on his friend’s name. It would be so easy, to fall back into their old pattern of bantering over foolish things and leaving the hard conversations for another time. “I’m not infinitely patient.”

“Yeah, I figured that out around the time you sucker-punched the Archangel Gabriel.”

“If you don’t want me around any more,” Aziraphale soldiered on, “Please just tell me. I only came over here to make sure you’re safe, but if you’d prefer I leave and not come back until you ask me to, or never come back at all, please just let me know and I’ll go. You won’t have to ask me again. But _please_ don’t-“ He waved his hand in a vague circle. “ _Nudge_ me into it. I can’t stand it anymore. Not from you.”

Crowley, still disoriented from his long sleep and from being back in human form, stared at the angel through his sunglasses and felt his heart turn over in his chest. Here was his chance. Draw his most wounding words, use his hard-won experience in pain to drive them home, and send Aziraphale on his way for good. Crowley could save him. His angel, on the edge but not Fallen, just on the right side of the line as long as Crowley was no longer around to drag him over.

He should do it. He _had_ to do it.

“After all we’ve been through, my dear,” Aziraphale continued. “Is that so much to ask? That we can be truthful with one another?”

It wasn’t. It was the absolute least his friend deserved.

“Angel,” he whispered. “I’m…I’m so scared.”

The angel’s features remained carefully neutral. “Of me?”

Crowley shook his head. “For you. For both of us.”

The smile that then crept across Aziraphale’s face was so gentle, so reassuring, Crowley felt himself go weak in the knees. How could any creature who could smile like that be anything but good, anything but pure?

“Would it help you to know, darling, that I’m not scared?”

“Might help. Might help more if I knew why.”

“I’d be happy to tell you, but first…” Aziraphale took a cautious step forward. “Crowley, please, may I kiss you?”

_Coward_ , hissed a small inner voice, but it was drowned out by Crowley’s heartbeat pounding in his ears.

“Yes. Please, yes.”

The angel came to him, waited for Crowley’s minute nod of permission before gingerly removing his sunglasses, and pressed his soft lips to his.

And Crowley’s willpower, already stretched gossamer-thin, snapped at last.

He sagged into Aziraphale’s arms, fully resigned to crashing to the floor if the angel didn’t hold him up. Aziraphale bore his weight and swallowed the choked sob he let out with another kiss, before letting Crowley bury his face against his neck and just breathe in the warm, clean scent of him. 

“It’s all gone wrong,” Crowley shuddered. “They figured it out. Took what we had and- and corrupted it. Made _me_ -“

“Does this feel wrong?” Aziraphale interrupted, one hand rubbing the back of Crowley’s neck in slow, comforting circles.

Crowley shook his head, his clutch around the angel’s waist growing tighter. “Never. But we can’t- you can’t- you’ll _Fall_ -“

“No, no, I don’t think I will.” Aziraphale laid his cheek against the sharp contours of Crowley’s shoulder. “I’ve had quite some time to think, you know. Think, and…and pray.”

At that, Crowley pulled back a bit to look at him, yellow eyes narrowing. “Pray? Did…did you get an answer?”

“No,” Aziraphale sighed. “But I did get some very reassuring silences.”

Crowley couldn’t hold back a light scoff at that. “That can’t be good enough.”

“The humans make do with it, don’t they?” The angel was stroking his hair, now, and just the touch of those delicate fingers was enough to make Crowley shiver with need. “Free will, remember? They’re born into the world, and they choose to be kind, or to hurt one another, or somehow manage to do both at once, and no Heavenly authority shows up to tell them they’ve got it right, or warn them when they’ve got it wrong. They just have to make the best choices they can based on what is given to them to know.”

“But…this is a _bloody awful_ choice. I stay with you, and worry every day that I’ll finally bring you over the edge, and we both wind up in Hell. Or I let you go, and…” Crowley bit back another sob. “I can’t do it, angel, I’m weak, I _can’t_.”

“You are _not_ weak,” Aziraphale scolded. “And you’re right. It’s not an easy choice. But it’s still _our choice._ I know what I want, Crowley. I want us to be kind to each other. Forever. And I don’t believe that She could _ever_ find anything wrong with that.”

“And if you’re wrong?”

“Then I’m wrong. It’s my right, to be wrong.” He smiled weakly at the pun. “But what do _you_ want, Crowley? Not what you think I want, or what you think Hell or Heaven _expects_ you to want. Just you.”

“I want _this_.” Crowley pulled Aziraphale into his arms again, raked his fingers through his hair, tasted his lips. “Always, this. But if Lucifer-“

“ _Bollocks_ to Lucifer.” The way the angel spoke the curse word made Crowley strongly suspect he’d never spoken it aloud before. “She’s got ten million other demons at her beck and call. She doesn’t want you back in your old job. She wants to _win_. And she doesn’t get to, my love. Not as long as we choose each other.”

Crowley thought of living a life with Aziraphale, a real, _shared_ life, crafted by the two of them, knowing it could be ripped away from them at any moment. Walking in the park and sitting in restaurants and making love, all of it right on the edge of utter ruin and the Devil’s wrath. Clinging to each other, making it harder every minute to let go, all with the possibility of being pulled apart by forces beyond their control.

_Humans_ , he thought, with a sense of awe that had been dormant for a very long time. _They really don’t get enough credit, do they? Considering what they put up with._

“And so?”

Aziraphale was still waiting in his embrace, eyes wide and hopeful, but braced for disappointment as well. Waiting for Crowley to make his choice.

“Course I choose you, angel,” Crowley said softly. 

Relief broke over Aziraphale’s face, and once again Crowley found himself amazed. He really had been prepared for Crowley to say no, to leave him to his misplaced martyrdom if that was what he’d asked for. No guilt-trips, no demands, nothing but love.

Their next kiss was breathless, the following one frantic. After Crowley’s long months of cold and isolation, the heady rush of it bordered right on the edge of being too much. It might prove to be just that, but he was in no mood to stop or even slow things down. Whatever lay before them, it wouldn’t be like this again, this stingingly sweet sense of reunion. Mainly because Crowley never intended to go so long without Aziraphale’s touch ever again, if he had anything to say about it.

“Take me to bed, angel?” he gasped when they came up for air.

Aziraphale rolled his eyes. “You’ve been sleeping for the better part of a _year_.”

“You know damn well I don’t mean to sleep.”

The angel flashed a mischievous smile that Crowley wanted to eat right off of his face. “Are you sure you wouldn’t rather just stay out here?”

“What, in front of _them_?” Crowley gestured at the plants with genuine horror. “You think they’d still respect me after _that_?”

“I…” Aziraphale paused mid-thought, brow furrowing. “You know, I’m really not sure how to answer that.”

“Come on.” Crowley seized Aziraphale’s hand and led him to the bedroom, casting one last menacing look at the freshly-revived plants as they went.

That sense of too-much-too-fast eased when they reached the bedroom and their kisses became languid and slow, Crowley forgoing miracle-ing away their clothes to allow them the pleasure of undressing each other piece by piece. It sharpened again when his back hit the mattress, Aziraphale above him, enveloping him. He gasped and writhed under the sensation of the angel’s mouth on his bare chest, whimpered when he licked a wet stripe up the demon’s neck and claimed his lips again, twisted the sheets in his fists when a thigh slid between his legs, bringing with it sweet, torturous pressure.

“All right, love?” Aziraphale breathed into his ear.

“Y-yeah,” Crowley groaned in response. “Fine. Just…s-s-sensitive.”

“Mmm.” Another kiss, this one with a bit of teeth behind it. “You know how much I love it when you do that? I’m beginning to suspect you choose s-words on purpose when we’re in bed, just to drive me mad.”

“Well, I do _now_.”

“My wily serpent,” Aziraphale sighed. “But _are_ you all right? We can slow down, if you need to.”

Crowley shook his head. “Need you, angel. Need you to have me, need to be yours. Need to be good for you, please, Aziraphale, let me be _good_.”

“You’re good.” The angel was kissing his way down Crowley’s chest again, his breath teasing the soft skin of his stomach. “You’re good, you’re good, you don’t need to prove it to me, my darling, you don’t need to be anything but _you_ , all I want, all I’ve ever wanted-“

“Tell me, angel, please-“

“You’re mine, Crowley, as long as I can be yours, too, for as long as you want to be.”

“Yesss…”

“Your clever mouth, your gorgeous eyes, mine.” 

Crowley’s eyes were squeezed shut at the moment, and he was well beyond being able to say anything clever or even coherent, but he nodded.

“Your lovely hands, mine.”

Hands that were twisted in the sheets again, hanging on for dear life as the angel’s own hands began to slowly take him apart.

“You body, every inch of it, all for me.”

A gentle rake of nails down Crowley’s ribs that had his back arching off the mattress.

“Here…and here…and _here_ …”

“F-ffffuck, Aziraphale, _please_ -“

Everywhere- Heaven, Hell, London, the flat- dropped away as Crowley came undone under the ministrations of Aziraphale’s tongue and fingers. He heard himself pleading incoherently, felt tears leaking from his eyes and didn’t care. His release left him reeling, open-mouthed, liquid-limbed, unable to do anything but twitch feebly as Aziraphale kissed his way back up.

“Don’t…don’t deserve you, angel,” he murmured into his lover’s sweat-damp blonde hair.

“Shhhh.” Aziraphale’s voice was firm, self-assured, perhaps not infinitely patient, but near enough. “We deserve each other.”

“Hmmm.” Crowley took a deep breath, rallied the bit of strength he had left, and flipped them over, relishing Aziraphale’s gasp of surprise. He rolled his hips between the angel’s legs, savored the salty-sweet taste of his skin, drank those blue-green eyes in with his own until he was drowning.

“Relax, my love.” 

Crowley let his tongue flicker against an earlobe, chasing that rewarding whimper he knew it would bring. 

“My turn.”


	19. Epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And so we reach the end. Thank you so, so much to everyone who read, liked and commented! I hope you've enjoyed reading this as much as I enjoyed writing it.

_SIX YEARS LATER_

Aziraphale had not had much occasion to visit the New World before, either as a dutiful angel or as an idle tourist. He regretted that now. If Montreal was any indication of this hemisphere’s general character, he was missing out on quite a bit.

It was a strange, but interesting, city, a place where beautiful churches and charming restaurants nestled shoulder-to-shoulder with gaudy fashion boutiques and neon-smeared dens of vice. Under different circumstances, Aziraphale would have very much liked to walk these streets accompanied by Crowley, to watch the demon be dazzled by the sights and puzzled by the Canadians. 

However, he had promised his point of contact here that he would come alone. Aziraphale did not make promises he could not keep.

It was a sultry summer night, and even at a quarter to midnight, the streets were active, surging. Aziraphale passed unnoticed through the tipsy, talkative, surprisingly well-dressed crowds of the main thoroughfares before coming to a quieter boulevard, broad and hedge-lined. 

Aziraphale spotted the church a few blocks ahead, and was surprised to see the doors were open, light spilling out onto the pavement. He could remember a time when churches had been open at night as a matter of course, to provide sanctuary and comfort for those with nowhere else to go. But he didn’t think people did that anymore, and had been expecting for this meeting to take place on the sidewalk outside. Or, God forbid, perhaps his contact had been expecting him to break in. Aziraphale could only imagine what assumptions had been made about his scruples regarding such things.

The scene in the church was not what the angel expected. There was the air of a revel only just completed, an expectation to find the floor littered with glitter and streamers, although in reality the floors were pristine, as were the pews and the modest altar. Up near the pulpit, a group of young people sat in a loose circle, some with musical instruments resting by their sides. They passed around a bottle of something in a brown paper bag, but were talking quietly among themselves, and paid Aziraphale no mind when he came in. Off in one of the pews to the side, an old man in a heavy coat lay dozing, his hands folded across his broad chest. Aziraphale, in his summer linens, did not look any less out of place here than he did anywhere else, but no more so than usual, either. He settled down, content, in a pew near the back.

He still had a few minutes before his contact was expected to show up. He folded his hands, closed his eyes, and spoke, silently, to the Almighty.

He prayed for the world, for love to conquer fear and for compassion to conquer violence. He prayed for Crowley, back in England, for his worries to be soothed and his goodness rewarded. He prayed for the future, that he would accept whatever it brought with grace.

He prayed that he would be forgiven.

Aziraphale understood now that he would never know whether the vengeful souls he had smote were better off wherever he had sent them than they would have been in Hell. Whether his act, done in defense of his true love, had been merciful or monstrous. It would not be given unto him to know. He had, in time, accepted that.

When he spoke to the Almighty, he prayed for Her forgiveness, and he hoped that he didn’t need it, and tried to take comfort in the silence that followed.

Aziraphale felt the angelic presence enter the church, and silently finished up his meditations. When he opened his eyes, there was a polite cough from his right, and Aziraphale looked over and nodded in greeting.

The newcomer was smiling shyly through his curtain of silky black hair. He was dressed a touch more conservatively than one would expect someone of his apparent age to be, but in his ear glittered a tiny ruby stud; a drop of rebellion in a sea of respectability.

“Hello, Karael,” Aziraphale said. “Good to see you again.”

“You too,” Karael answered, sea-green eyes eager and nervous. “Thanks for, um, meeting me here. I know it’s a long trip.”

“No trouble at all. It’s an interesting place.” Aziraphale wasn’t sure whether they were talking about the city or the church, but Karael’s choice of meeting place made a bit more sense, now that Aziraphale could have a look at him. Churches were good places in general for clandestine celestial meetings (too much noise coming out of them to pick out any one conversation, most of the time), but this particular church, at this particular time, had been a surprise. It was less so, now.

“Yeah. Anyway. I wanted to talk to you-“ Karael twisted his hands in his lap. “Because I’m having this, this problem. And I know Heaven’s official stance, I know what I’m _supposed_ to do, but- but I’m just scared I’ll mess up, and no one will _talk_ to me about it-“

Aziraphale nodded. Karael had informed him of this much already, and Aziraphale already had a fairly good guess what the problem was, but there was no sense in rushing the poor angel. He was clearly saying things he hadn’t dared to speak aloud before.

“Why don’t you start at the beginning?”

“Um. Okay. So, I have this… _counterpart_ , here in town. You know? From…from Hell. We’re supposed to be adversaries, I guess, I mean I was stationed here to keep an eye on _him_ , but that means we run into each other a lot. And he’s…I mean, yeah, he’s a demon, obviously he’s evil, but he’s not, you know, _mean_ …especially not to me. And they warned me about this, in Heaven, they warned me he would try to make me Fall…warned me about what happened to you…”

He looked sidelong at Aziraphale, two red spots burning in his cheeks. 

Aziraphale had to force a stern look onto his face. “And what do they say happened to me?”

Karael’s blush intensified. “That, well, that you Fell, of course. That the demon, um-“

“Crowley.”

“Right. Crowley. That you were given to him as a reward, that you’re like his, his pet now, and he does all sorts of terrible things to you-“

“And you believe that?”

“Well, not _all_ of it, some of it seemed a little…far-fetched. And you’re _here_ , obviously, so clearly he doesn’t keep you, like, chained up or anything. But, you did..you did Fall, didn’t you?”

Struggling mightily to push _that_ mental image from his head, Aziraphale sighed and brushed some invisible spots of dirt off his sleeves.

“Before we get into that, how about you tell me about your friend? Your counterpart.”

Karael’s brow furrowed in confusion. “Um…sure? He, well, his name’s Dez. He used to be a rhyming demon, but I guess they don’t do that anymore in Hell.” A smile tugged at the young angel’s face. “Still likes poetry, though. Writes it on his phone. He’s read me a few things; they’re good. He, uh-“ He looked about, to see if anyone was listening. “Mostly he doesn’t really interfere with humans, to be honest, just watches what they do and takes credit for it. He’s smart. And he _talks_ to me. It’s so lonely down here away from Heaven, and when I report back no one wants to make jokes, or asks me how I am, or tells me anything interesting, and he _does_ …”

Karael looked back at Aziraphale, eyes wide and frightened.

“I can’t stop thinking about him. It’s making me miserable.”

Had he not been worried about frightening the young angel right out of his earthly corporation, Aziraphale would have reached over and patted his shoulder or taken his hand. Instead he allowed himself to smile and nod, as one listening to a familiar, well-loved story.

“And what about him? How do you think he feels?”

Karael seemed surprised at the question. “Well…good I guess? All the time I spend with him means I’m technically neglecting my Heavenly duties, so that means he’s doing his job well, right?”

“You don’t think Hell might have given him some similar warning? Some dire consequences about fraternizing with _you_?”

“Um.” Karael looked at his shoes, his expression turning contemplative. “I don’t think he talks to his superiors in Hell very often. He doesn’t go down there more than he can help it.”

“Do you trust him?”

The young angel’s lip quivered. “I shouldn’t.”

“But do you?”

“I…” Karael raked his hands through his hair and fixed Aziraphale with a wild, almost angry look. “I thought when I saw _you_ I’d know. I’d be able to sense the, the evil from you, or the good, same as any of us, and I would understand what I’m supposed to _do_. No one will tell me, _She_ won’t tell me-“

He clapped his hand over his mouth after that, horrified, goggling at the altar.

“No,” Aziraphale said gently. “No, Karael, She won’t. Rarely does She ever tell us what we’re supposed to do. But sometimes She shows Her approval in…unusual ways.”

“Like how?”

Aziraphale hesitated. Karael’s eyes were searching, desperate. If it was an act, it was a good one, but it could still always be an act, and Aziraphale would be a fool for trusting anyone but Crowley, once again.

But he was an angel. He couldn’t live like that, it was not in his nature to be so uncharitable.

“Listen,” he said, in a voice so quiet Karael had to lean toward him to hear. “Back when Armageddon was supposed to happen, Crowley and I knew we were going to be put on trial…”

——

Some time later, they left the church, both locked in their own moody silences. Karael shoved his hands in the pockets of his slacks and shuffled his feet on the pavement, glancing up at Aziraphale once again through his bangs.

“Thanks,” he said. “I feel…well, maybe not better. But…different.”

“Knowledge is good, Karael,” Aziraphale answered. “I truly believe that.”

“Hope you’re right,” the young angel answered, then looked up sharply. 

There was a figure on the bench across the street, a young man idly toying with a mobile phone. He wore a red hoodie over his dusty-gray hair, and the way he sprawled against the arm of the bench made Aziraphale’s heart twist with a sudden burst of homesickness. Spotting the two angels leaving the church, he raised one hand in a lazy wave.

Karael grinned, and waved in return, then turned and shook Aziraphale’s hand. They said their goodbyes and Karael strolled across the street to where the demon waited for him, their voices picking up the rhythms of a long-running conversation resumed.

Aziraphale watched them go, and smiled, and wished he was back home.

——

So he went. He got on an airplane, and then a train, and a bus, and then he was strolling down a country lane in the South Downs just as dusk was beginning to fall.

Crowley had shown him, several times, a series of buttons he could press on his mobile phone that would have summoned a car to take him. But it was nice to walk, and besides, humans did not always have the best of luck finding their cottage. There was something _elusive_ about the geography of the place the two of them had settled.

Upon arriving at their cottage, Aziraphale could tell that Crowley was home. Sometimes the demon went on excursions of his own while Aziraphale was away, returning with chocolates, or a bottle of something exotic, and fresh stories from his travels. More often than not, though, Aziraphale would return to find him rambling away in the greenhouse, or doing something inscrutable under the hood of the Bentley, or sleeping, in snake or human form, on the well-worn sofa in the library.

Today, he was in the garden. Aziraphale walked up to the gate and saw him, sitting with his back against the garden’s only tree, the setting sun behind his profile lighting up his hair like a torch. He was holding something in his lap, a large notebook of some kind, and was writing or drawing with a look of avid concentration.

The wave of love Aziraphale felt for him then was so intense, so transcendental, that he almost didn’t notice the sound of the car pulling up behind him.

It was a sleek, silver, thoroughly modern contraption, and as it slowed to a stop outside the cottage a window in the back rolled down. 

Inside, it was utterly black, despite the fact that the vehicle itself was still washed in sunset’s orange glow. For a moment there was nothing from within, and then, out of the darkness, two pinpoints of silver winked into existence, and grew to predatory slits.

Aziraphale stared back coolly, one hand on the gate, and waited. And prayed.

_Forgive us, and protect us, You who shaped us to fit together. Let this place be ruled by love, and love alone._

And the window of the car rolled up, and the car pulled away from the cottage and crept off down the lane, disappearing over the crest of a hill, and silence reigned in the garden once more.

Aziraphale closed the gate behind him and made his way over to Crowley, who had tucked his pencil behind his ear and turned to watch the angel when the car rolled up. Now, as Aziraphale approached, he set his notebook by his side and stretched his legs out on the tartan blanket beneath him, flashing his most inviting smile.

“Welcome home,” he sighed, snagging Aziraphale’s hand to plant a quick kiss on his knuckles. “How’d it go this time?”

“Rather well, I think.” Aziraphale settled down on the blanket next to Crowley, careful to avoid the possibility of grass stains on his clothes. “Heaven’s story has gotten quite… _elaborate_. I think more and more angels are finding it harder to believe.”

“Hmm. I know what you mean. You should hear what they’re saying about _you_ down in Hell these days.”

Aziraphale frowned. “Should I?”

“Well…” Crowley grinned. “Maybe later.”

Before he could get too distracted by what _that_ could mean, Aziraphale turned his attention to the notebook lying discarded by Crowley’s side. The blue pencil lines were a bit hard to look at, as if they were actively resisting being restricted to two dimensions. Aziraphale saw looping whorls and interlocking circles, accented by brilliant points of light. And numbers, like surveyor’s specifications.

“Is this…a blueprint?” he asked.

“Just a design, really,” Crowley answered, scooping up the notebook. For a moment it looked like he was about to flip it closed, but then he instead laid it back on his lap, letting Aziraphale take a closer look. “Not like it’ll ever get built. But after seeing what they were working on in Heaven, I, dunno, got this idea. Thought it would be fun to just…play around with it.”

“It’s lovely,” Aziraphale said, resting his head against the demon’s shoulder. “Don’t stop on my account. Unless you’d rather be alone?”

“No, stay.” Crowley took the pencil from behind his ear and tapped it on the page. “Take a look. Tell me what you think of this bit.”

Aziraphale watched Crowley sketch until it became too dark for him to see. Night fell, and found the guardian and the serpent still beneath the tree, stretched out on the blanket and looking up at the stars.

“I was thinking we should take a vacation,” Aziraphale said as he stroked Crowley’s hair. “Somewhere we’ve never been before.”

“Yeah?” Crowley burrowed deeper into the space between Aziraphale’s neck and shoulder, chasing the angel’s body heat as the night air grew chilly. “Any idea where?”

“Oh, yes. Several, in fact.”

“Sure. Anywhere you like.” Crowley raised his head suddenly, eyes wary. “We can still come back here, though, right? When we’re done?”

Aziraphale looked at the stars wheeling overhead, then closed his eyes. The world breathed around him, sweet and strange and pulsing with life. There were no promises it would last forever. There never had been.

“Of course, love,” he whispered, pulling Crowley as close as their physical limitations would allow. “We can always come back here.”

It didn’t matter if it was true. They believed it, for now


End file.
